Protecting Prime Agricultural Land from

Written by: Luke Olson

As a study land use planner, I feel that prime farmland is being rapidly replaced as development pressures from surrounding communities and rural residential development for non-farm families proliferate into the countryside. Let me first take the time to discuss the definition of prime farmland. Areas classified as “prime” for agricultural production posses a combination of ideal soils, moisture regimes or levels for plant production, and also topographic features that allow for cultivation. An example parcel that could be delineated as prime farmland may have well-drained silty soils on slopes less than 2 degrees. County planning departments use zoning or the division of the landscape into different zones of best use, to distinguish prime farmlands.

A strong social norm that appeared with the advancement of the motor vehicle was to expand residential development into the countryside. There are several benefits for residents to flee to the countryside when they are considering potential development areas: cheaper land prices, free of problems that exist in cities (like crime and congestion), and less restrictions on structure placement. Many citizens saw the potential of moving outside of the city boundaries as an easy decision. Many rural developments sprang up before prime farmland was clearly established. This resulted in the fragmenting of large contiguous farmland as well as a permanently preventing effective farming on the site.

Several problems appear as more and more resident slide past the city limit line and into the countryside when building. For residents in farming district, problems include: constant manure smell, late noise of tractor operations, and roadway mess from spreading and cultivation. From the farmer’s stance, rural residents bring with them higher traffic volumes, on-lot septic systems, private wells, and conflicts between farmer and resident. Some locations are more susceptible development pressures. In many cases farmers, who are ultimately land rich, have the opportunity to negotiate some rather lucrative development deals if the location is desired by a firm. Luckily, there are several methods to actively protect farmland.

Methods of protecting prime agricultural land can be unique to a given area because of development pressure applied by a major metropolitan area. Another unique factor may reiterate the area’s strong agricultural sector and its attachment to land preservation for crop production. Each parcel of land comes with a number of development rights which can be purchased outright or transferred to direct development in a certain manner. Urban growth boundaries or the barriers that restrict development beyond the designated urban area as set by the municipality can also effectively protect valuable farmland.

I feel that more focus be put on the loss of prime farmland protection by municipal, county, and regional planning departments. There are further methods than the ones discussed that can be used as a multi-method approach to corralling residential development in rural areas. It should be more of a cooperative effort between natural resource management agencies, agricultural sector stakeholders, development firms, and planning departments to keep vital prime agricultural land connected and uninterrupted by rural residences. Neither side seems to benefit when they interact with one another, so there should be no valid reason that either side could make as to why this interaction should occur in the first place. Beyond environmentalism, the economics surrounding the loss of a valuable resource, prime farmland, should provide enough common sense in people’s minds to prevent rural residential development from continuing in these areas.