The Bay region is losing farmland and farms at a rapid rate. There's not the resources to sustain this industry.
Modern intensive farmland is a biological desert. Whereas if you tried to design a small nature reserve, you couldn't do better than the average garden - it's got all the required elements.
Preserving farmland and preserving the farming enterprise must go hand-in-hand. By working with Cumberland County Economic Development, we are able to help ensure that area farms become preserved, and remain competitive, for generations to come.
Growing Greener doesn't produce money for farmland preservation or open space preservation.
They indicated that farmland was not being purchased for agricultural purposes in most cases, and that the income from the agricultural use was not a primary consideration in the purchase.
I think it's possible to have both. I think the farmland and country atmosphere we have here in the area is pretty well protected and I'm sure the zoning and planning commissions in each community are trying to keep a balance.
As a farmer, I want farmland to remain in farming.
This is driven by the concept that you can preserve farmland while creating housing, instead of just taking the land and chopping it up.
The conservation of high nature value farmland will probably require a more concentrated effort in core areas, whereas a retreat of agriculture and targeted nature development in other areas seems quite promising,
So it's an old, aging system that instead of protecting farmland is actually protecting small cities, levees of questionable integrity protecting higher value real estate.