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SACRAMENTO -- Bill
and Anna Wattenbarger take great
pleasure in watching their 3 ½-year-old
grandson pretend to drive around the
family farm, imitating the chores of his
father, Dan. They’re pleased to know
that when little Logan is ready to drive
a real tractor, the farm will still be
there.
“That’s what my
husband Bill and I always hoped and
dreamed about, keeping the farm going,”
Anna Wattenbarger said. “Dan is the
fourth generation farming this land, and
he has two little boys, Logan and Jett
(1). Logan shows every indication he’s
going to be a farmer, too.”
Added Bill
Wattenbarger: “For some, farming is just
a business. But this land is precious to
us.”
The 216-acre
property, one of the Wattenbarger
family’s farms, is located between the
cities of Fresno and Madera along the
northern edge of the San Joaquin River
in Madera County. The farm produces
Thompson seedless raisins, almonds and
Zante currants. The family doesn’t have
to drive too far off its property to see
approaching development, especially from
the Fresno side.
“There’s a lot more
traffic, and Fresno’s a lot closer than
it used to be,” Mrs. Wattenbarger said.
According to a recent
report from the California Department of
Conservation (DOC), 18,801 acres of land
in Fresno, Kings, Merced, Madera, and
Tulare counties were converted from
farmland or grazing land to
non-agricultural uses between 2002 and
2004, an average of nearly 26 acres a
day.
But the Wattenbargers’
property will never be developed.
Through the
California Farmland Conservancy Program
(CFCP), the DOC financed the creation of
an agricultural conservation easement on
the land. The landowners contributed in
the form of a bargain sale price and a
donation to the
San Joaquin River Parkway and
Conservation Trust to be used for
ongoing monitoring and stewardship of
the easement. The family maintains
control of farming operations.
“I know just how the
Wattenbarger family feels about its
land,” said Secretary for Resources Mike
Chrisman, a fourth-generation rancher in
Tulare County. “Projects like this help
us achieve the goal of keeping as much
of our farmland in agriculture as
possible. Doing so is vital to the
future of our state.”
The CFCP is designed
to ensure that the state's most valuable
farmland will not be developed.
Begun in 1996, the
CFCP has provided $53 million in grant
funding to permanently shield 35,000
acres of the state’s best and most
vulnerable agricultural land from
development.
“Farmers need land
for crops, and our growing population
needs land for homes, schools, parks and
business,” noted DOC Director Bridgett
Luther. “The needs of those two sides
don’t always fit together perfectly. But
our California Farmland Conservancy
Program is a partnership of landowners,
land stewards and government agencies
that helps maintain a balance between
growth and agriculture.”
Added Brian Leahy,
head of DOC’s Division of Land Resource
Protection: “We’re particularly pleased
with the completion of this project
since it’s in an area where so much
farmland is being urbanized and involves
a dedicated farming family.”
Bill Wattenbarger’s
grandparents, Martha and Gilmore “Mac”
Wattenbarger, began the farm in 1915.
Bill was born there in 1936. He married
Anna in 1964. With the exception of
their first year of marriage, when they
lived in Fresno, Bill and Anna have
lived on the farm since, raising two
sons.
“We’ve added to the
original property,” Anna Wattenbarger
said. “We’ve grown all kinds of crops on
the land - at various times, cotton,
corn, sugar beets, alfalfa and other
things. We’ve slowly but surely moved
into permanent crops. Bill is
semi-retired now. He only works when he
wants to. We’re just very happy to know
that future generations will be able to
farm here, too.”
The San Joaquin River
Parkway & Conservation Trust, Inc., is a
non-profit corporation created in 1988
to protect and restore 33 miles of river
in the rapidly urbanizing Fresno-Madera
region. In partnership with state and
federal agencies and local governments,
the Trust has been successful in
protecting land through fee title
acquisition, conservation easements, and
wildlife habitat restoration. The CFCP
previously gave the Trust a planning
grant to develop potential agricultural
conservation easements; the Wattenbarger
Farm project is a direct result of that
partnership. The Trust has invited all
landowners in this section of the river
to consider participation in the CFCP
program.
“We must ensure the
San Joaquin River continues to support
the farmers, families, fish and wildlife
that depend on the river,” said Dave
Koehler, executive director of the
Trust. “We hope that other landowners
take note of what the Wattenbarger
family has done. It makes great sense
for those landowners who are committed
to farming, and to being good stewards
of land.”
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