American Farmland Trust applauds the bipartisan movement now underway across the nation to promote "smart growth." While we are strong advocates of local solutions to land use issues, we believe there is a vital role for the federal government in assisting local communities that are struggling to protect farmland while accommodating growth. In nearly half of the states there are aggressive efforts underway to protect farmland, both for its importance to local economies and as a tool in controlling sprawl.
This nation's productive agricultural land deserves the same protection that you, Mr. Chairman, have worked so tirelessly to afford to our other important natural resources. It simply makes sense for America to protect the land that provides the nation's food and fiber, offers scenic open space, provides wildlife habitat, and reflects America's heritage. We must not lose sight of the constant threat to farmland posed by sprawling, unplanned growth.
But it isn't just the farmland being paved over that should be of concern to agriculture. Another reason why sprawl matters is its influence over the pattern of development. Because, for every acre of farmland developed, 2 to 3 more acres now have a subdivision next door. And agriculture is at risk when it has too many neighbors.
Most suburbanites simply don't want to put up with manure odors, noise, dust and drifting farm chemicals - the inevitable byproducts of production agriculture. Some don't think twice about helping themselves to some apples from the orchard across the road; or about letting their dogs run free to harass or maim dairy cows. An increasing number of ex-urban refugees are suing farmers for doing what they've always done - when there was nobody around to complain. Now, the Supreme Court has ruled that "right to farm" laws, which try to prevent homeowners from suing farmers, are an unconstitutional "taking" of private property - the homeowners' property, not the farmers'!
Mr. Chairman, there are three essential steps to creating "smart growth" strategies that will benefit everyone: farmers and ranchers, urban dwellers and suburban residents.
First, American communities must envision their futures, and plan comprehensively to make that vision reality. A good strategic framework should include planning for agriculture along with plans for urban redevelopment, suburban transportation, and other challenges of growth. Too often, while local leaders work to bring new business to a community they overlook agriculture as a true "wealth generator" - an industry that brings value to the community from renewable natural resources. In many traditional farm communities citizens are awakening to the prospect that this important, consistent economic base is at risk; and they recognize that one of the solutions is to ensure that the land base is protected. This calculus has little to do with the global food supply, but everything to do with the value of farming to local economies
The recent surge in local and state efforts to protect farmland suggests rapidly rising national concern over the loss of farmland and the environmental benefits it provides. In last November's elections 72 percent of 240 initiatives to protect farmland and open space were approved by voters across the nation. In recent years Governors Engler, Voinovich, Ridge, Pataki, Wilson, Whitman, Weld, Glendening and others have supported or initiated farmland protection efforts to address this problem. Nearly every day this year major newspapers have carried articles about sprawl and "smart growth," frequently citing farmland protection as one of the key components of the latter. And the President highlighted the need to help communities protect "farmland and open space" in his State of the Union speech.
Recent studies by American Farmland Trust have documented that more than 80 percent of this nation's fruits, vegetables and dairy products are grown in metropolitan area counties or fast growing adjacent counties - in the path of sprawling development. And a 1997 AFT study found that over the past decade 1,000,000 acres of farmland were lost to urban uses each year. The loss of soil to asphalt -- like the loss of soil to wind and water erosion -- is an issue of national importance.
But one should not get caught up in the "numbers game". The fact is that every year we continue to squander some of this nation's most valuable farmland with the expectation that this land can be replaced with imports, or with new technologies that promise to help maintain the productivity gains of the past half century. The reality is that we don't know whether new technologies will keep pace. What we do know is that whatever those technologies will be, it is likely that they will be more efficiently applied on productive land than on marginal land where higher levels of energy, fertilizer, chemicals and labor per unit of output are required. Simply put, It is in the nation's best interest to keep the best land for farming as an insurance policy against the challenge of feeding an expanding population in the 21st century.
The second essential step to creating smart growth strategies is the elimination of subsidies that support sprawling development over our best farmland. Public policy should not favor untrammeled consumption of land, nor should they drive development out of America's cities.
While most of the policy decisions that lead to sprawl are made at the state and local level, these decisions are often based on economic incentives created by federal activity. The sad fact is that our current patterns of low-density development are the result of fifty years of government policy decisions, direct government funding, and government-influenced private finance and credit decisions. In most American cities, the mix of these policies and market forces creates a strong economic push toward an ever-expanding suburbia at the expense of our core urban and inner suburban areas.
Federal transportation policy is an illustrative example. Highway building enhances the tendency to sprawl. Local roads, a principal lifeline for many rural residents, receive disproportionately little funding for priorities such as maintenance. Instead, funds are disproportionately being spent on new or expanding highways at the edges of metropolitan areas where fewer people live. Meanwhile, poor pavement conditions, transit operations, and other transportation needs in suburbs and cities go largely unmet.
A recent study of tax, transportation and development policies in the Atlanta area, conducted by AFT and the Georgia Conservancy, pinpoints several factors that favor suburban over urban development. [I ask the Chair to please include the report's executive summary in the record.] Of the nine different policies and other factors studied, land cost - affected by highway construction - was by far the leading factor in driving development out of the city and into suburban areas. Transportation investments in highways are not the sole cause of sprawl, but they are contributors. They are part of a web of factors that result in the paving of more than one million acres of farmland per year, and disinvestment in urban cores and inner suburbs.
The good news is that the federal government is providing tools to combat the unwanted side effects of these policies. In the landmark 1991 transportation bill affectionately known as "ISTEA" and in the TEA-21 bill that reauthorized it last year, a small but important sum is set aside to support alternatives to the highway system and reduce its negative effects on society. The law authorizes billions of dollars through the Transportation Enhancements program for bicycle and pedestrian trails, acquisition of scenic or historic easements, and mitigation of water pollution due to highway runoff.
How ironic though, that the taxpayer has to pay twice - once by subsidizing sprawl, and a second time to offset its negative impacts. We strongly urge you to take a critical look at the wide range of public subsidies that continue to induce this unwanted land use behavior.
The third and final essential step to creating smart growth strategies is to enlist the support of private landowners. Local, state and federal agencies, along with private organizations must work with landowners to help them protect the best lands, including farmland. In fact, working with private landowners should become the foundation of future conservation policy, because the future of the American working landscape will depend upon it.
For the past quarter century conservation goals in our country have been largely achieved by either imposing additional regulations or through government purchase of private land. However, these actions have failed to resolve conflicts over important problems - like species or farmland protection, for example - that rely on the participation of thousands of private landowners. At AFT we very strongly believe that in the 21st century new approaches to land conservation will be needed that address the concerns of private landowners and bring them into partnerships with the American public to achieve broad community goals on private land. And do it in a manner that shares the cost between those who steward the land, and those who benefit from a well-managed private landscape.
America cannot - indeed should not - buy all the land that needs protecting. So the support of farmers and ranchers for conservation policies is absolutely critical because they own the land that plays such a vital role in producing conservation benefits for all Americans to enjoy. As farmers we are proud of the abundant supply of food and fiber we have provided Americans and millions of others around the world; and we are pleased that well-managed farms also "produce" scenic vistas, open spaces, wildlife habitat and watershed integrity for our communities to enjoy. And in many instances, our farms and ranches serve as crucial buffers around our parks, battlefields and other important resources. These are tangible environmental goods and services that farmers should be encouraged to produce, and for which they should be appropriately rewarded. It is only fair that the cost of producing and maintaining these goods should be shared by the public that benefits from them.
A number of bipartisan proposals contain provisions that move us in that direction. We support the Resources 2000 Act and S. 333 because these bills recognize the role that private landowners play in the stewardship of our natural resources, protecting their property rights, while compensating them for the environmental goods they produce for the public. And we thank Chairman Chafee for his co-sponsorship of S. 333.
The purchase of development rights approach proposed by these bills provides an innovative, voluntary opportunity for appropriate local agencies to work with landowners by offering them compensation to protect the most productive farmland -- farmland that is critical to both the agricultural economic base of our rural and suburban communities and the environmental values provided by well-managed farms.
These bills would leave protected lands on the local tax rolls, contributing to the local economy. The value of this approach to local communities cannot be understated. AFT has conducted more than forty Cost of Community Services Studies around the country. In every case, these studies have shown farmland provides more property tax revenue than is needed in public services, while sprawling residential development almost always requires more in services than it pays in taxes.
As more communities struggle with the problems of suburban sprawl, private lands protection is emerging as a key strategy of smart growth. The techniques proposed by the Resources 2000 Act and S.333 add an element of fairness to the difficult challenge of achieving public goals while balancing private property rights. They are a reasonable balance to the regulations that often lack fairness when applied alone. In fact, many communities are finding that implementing a purchase of development rights program actually strengthens support within the farm community for zoning and other necessary regulations.
Mr. Chairman, during this Congress you will have unprecedented opportunities to develop policies to encourage smart growth. This process is not about federal meddling in local affairs - as some critics have charged - but rather about who reaps the benefits and who carries the burdens of the status quo pattern of sprawl. Any successful policy must: (1) be consistent in the implementation of programs that influence local planning efforts; (2) be willing to eliminate counter-productive subsidies that are making the job more difficult; and (3) increase the incentives that reward stewardship on this nation's private lands.
Thank you for providing me with this opportunity to testify today, and I look forward to working with you to establish a truly farmer-friendly conservation policy.