Investment propertyThe View From Above: Are Developers Gobbling Up Our Farmland?
Any Baby Boomer who downed enough buttered popcorn would remember the scene
from "Soylent Green." Edward G. Robinson reports to a processing center when
he figures it"s his time to go. While the drugs take effect, he is treated
to a filmed, Technicolor-produced panoramic view of what life used to be like
in the United States before all the nature preserves and farmlands were gone,
all the seas were polluted, and the fresh air still blew over mountain tops.
Beethoven"s "Pastorale" supplies background music as Robinson emotionally
takes in scenes of lush farmland and sheep grazing on hillsides, and
Charleton Heston looks on in disbelief at what the world used to be like.
The Seventies sci-fi movie was truly a conversation piece at the time; no one
wanted to give away the ending, remember? Fortunately for us, the events
loosely predicted by the screenplay did not come to pass (It was a bit
far-fetched). And for those naysayers who lament the disappearance of
farmland due to urban housing and commercial development in these United
States, statistics don"t seem to bear them out.
The fact is, the amount of land used for growing crops today is virtually the
same amount of land used for it 50 years ago, according to a study by the
U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service. The statistics
indicate that there were approximately 363 million acres of cropland used for
crops in 1945, with 353 million acres currently in use for the same purpose
in 1997. Although some of the farmland is urbanized each year, no threat
seems to be posed to total cropland and agricultural production, according to
the data.
Analysts point to new technologies providing phenomenally better yields for
many crops, dramatically increasing food production. For instance, American
farmers now yield nearly twice the number of bushels per acre of corn now as
compared to 1964, even with government subsidies continuing to pay farmers to
leave some of their land idle.
American land use has changed significantly within the second half of the
twentieth century, to be sure. Fewer animals graze than ever before, while
land set aside for our recreational pleasure and wildlife preserves has
quadrupled. The fact is, however, the area set aside for these purposes far
exceeds urban-use land, with only about 3% of land in the lower 48 states
being used for urban or developed land, according to the research.
Builders would wish to point out that farmland preservation should not be
used as an excuse to stop the growth of housing, since statistics bear out
that urbanization is threatening neither farmland nor food supplies.
No-growth advocates are beginning to realize that where development is
arrested in one area, it will resurface in another, pretty much like
squeezing a closed tube of toothpaste. It can be said that these advocates
may be partly responsible for the inconsistent and unattractive patterns that
now exist in some areas, while they ignore input from the very individuals
whose lives may be affected by their efforts.
Effective land planning does not benefit from political rhetoric; rather it
benefits from round table discussions seeking common ground, since the needs
of each community is different. Only then can a true consensus emerge,
lending both logic and compromise to farmers, builders, environmentalists,
and the American public.
It may be true that land uses are shifting, but chances are that the
patchwork quilt of American scenery will not change significantly in the
years to come, falling well short of fulfilling sci-fi prophecies and
Hollywood visions of our demise.