|
Madera, Calif.,
September 25, 2002—Eight landowners have
banded together to create a “farmland
security perimeter” just outside of the
City of Madera, which will permanently
protect 440 acres of Central Valley
farmland and greatly reduce development
pressure on thousands more. The
protected vineyards and field crops form
an urban growth boundary that will
prevent the westward growth of Madera
toward 40,000 acres of productive
farmland.
"The Madera farmland
security perimeter marks the first time
that so many adjacent landowners in the
western United States have protected
their farms from development in this
type of simultaneous, mutually-binding
transaction,” said American Farmland
Trust President Ralph Grossi. “If one
landowner had decided not to proceed,
the whole deal would have come apart.
This goes to show that a group of
dedicated farmers, working together, can
protect their agricultural livelihoods
and shape the future of their
community.”
The willing
landowners had an experienced partner in
American Farmland Trust, a nationwide
farmland conservation organization. AFT
brought the farmers together to craft a
strategy for the perimeter. AFT then
worked with local, state and federal
agencies, acquiring grants from the
California Department of Conservation’s
California Farmland Conservancy Program
(CFCP) and the USDA National Resources
Conservation Service’s Farmland
Protection Program (FPP) to purchase
agricultural conservation easements on
the farms. Through easement
transactions, farmers relinquish the
non-agricultural development potential
of their land while retaining control of
their operations.
The CFCP grant was
$2.2 million, the largest in the
program’s history. The $1.1 million
federal grant was the largest FPP
conservation easement USDA has awarded
in California. The landowners involved
in the perimeter donated $1.25 million
to the effort by accepting less than
full value for the easements.
“These farmers
recognize the importance of agriculture
to the Central Valley and California’s
economy,” said Darryl Young, director of
the California Department of
Conservation. “We salute them not only
for making this decision, but also for
setting an example that other
agricultural landowners in the county
and state can follow.”
“Placing an easement on the farm was not
only an alternative to selling for
development, it has also helped my
bottom line,” said farmer Dennis
Prosperi. “By allowing a farmer to cash
in on the equity of the farm, easements
can be a sound business decision.”
“The landowners had a
vision for protecting the things they
value—their farmland, their lifestyle
and their communities,” said Chuck Bell,
state conservationist for the USDA's
Natural Resources Conservation Service,
which administers FPP. “The community
confirmed that protecting prime farmland
was also their goal. The USDA and the
State of California provided the tools
to make that vision a reality.” Bell
said that protecting farmland has
received greatly increased visibility
and support through the new farm bill,
which increases FPP easement funds by
over 1,100 percent from $50 to $569
million over six years.
Both the City and
County of Madera have passed resolutions
supporting the creation of the farmland
security perimeter. While more than 40
percent of Madera County is in
agricultural usage, the California
Department of Finance projects that its
population will grow from its current
124,300 to 203,200 by 2020. By
protecting a large region of
agricultural land on the western edge of
the city, the farmland security
perimeter directs Madera’s growth toward
less productive land to the east and
north.
“The Madera farmland
security perimeter will allow the city
to accommodate growth while protecting
its high quality farmland, an investment
that will pay off for years to come,”
said John McCaull, American Farmland
Trust’s California regional director.
“As California's
population continues to grow, our
efforts to preserve and protect prime
farmland becomes ever more important.
The cooperation of these farmers here
today in Madera demonstrates that we can
maintain the viability of our
agricultural economy by keeping these
lands in agricultural production,” said
Senator Costa, author of the legislation
that created the California Farmland
Conservancy Program.
According to the California Department
of Conservation, nearly 43,000 acres of
agricultural land—an area about the size
of the City of Modesto—was urbanized
between 1996 and 1998. Nationally,
American Farmland Trust reports that an
area of farmland the size of Delaware is
taken out of production each year.
# # #
American Farmland
Trust is a private, nonprofit farmland
conservation organization founded in
1980 to stop the loss of productive
farmland and to promote farming
practices that lead to a healthy
environment. AFT’s national office is
located in Washington D.C. AFT’s Visalia
field office is located at 1002 West
Main Street, Visalia, CA 93291.
Telephone number is (559) 627-3708. For
more information, visit AFT’s homepage
at
www.farmland.org.
|