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HomeMy WebLinkAbout; Agriculture Committee General Info (1982); Program Report; 1982-09-01L i , I; CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS AN AFFILIATE OF THE CLAREMONT COLLEGES 226 WEST FOOTHILL BOULEVARD - P. 0. Box 10 CLAREMONT, CALIFORNIA 91711 TELEPHONE (714) 624-5212 I. Dear Friend: As you requested -- or because someone told us that you have a serious interest in the issue of preserving agricultural land - we are sending you some detailed information about the California Farmlands Project. Enclosed are (1) an Wated description of the project; (2) a list of the members of the Task Force that guides it; and (3) a mrking paper giving an overview of agricultural land preservation in California. The California Farmlands Project, which is funded principally by the state Legislature, is investigating options for preserving agricultural land in California. Our aim is to arrive at specific recarmendations for long-range state plicies and programs that will have wide support mng all of the groups concerned with the problem: farmers, amservationists , landowners, developers, consumers, and state and local governments. You have been placed on a mailing list to receive the project's newsletter, as well as announcements of meetings that may be scheduled in your area. Please note that we will hold a major statewide, plblic oonference on April 18-19, 1983, at the Visalia Qnvention Center in Visalia, Tblare Qunty. This will be a mrking meeting to discuss specific options for state policy. We invite your active participation in the project. If you need mre information or muld like to discuss the issues involved, please call me at (714) 624-5212 or (714) 625-5527. Sincerely, ELEANOR M. (30HEN (MRS.) Assistant Director and Coordinator, California Farmlands project CALIFORNIA FAWLANDS TASK FORCE Note: Out of date changes in PWXSECT because of Administration. Thaddeus C. (Tea) Trzyna, CHAIRMAN; President, California Institute of Public Affairs, an affiliate of The Qarmnt Colleges, Claremont Daniel A. Mamanian, PRINCIPAL CONSULTANT; Associate Professor of kvemment and Director, Program in Public Policy Analysis, Fbma College, Claremt John B. Ashbaugh, Planner, MW Associates, San Luis Qispo Darwyn H. Briggs, Assistant State Conservationist, U.S. Soil Conservation Michael Chrisman, rancher, Visalia; President, Pgricultural Leadership *Don V. Collin, Legislative Counsel, California Building Industry Association, Jan Denton, Director, California Department of Conservation, Sacramento Peter M. Detwiler, Consultant, Senate Conunittee on Local Government, Sacramento Sharon L. Dxglas, Iand Acquisition Specialist, Barratt San Jose (residential John Garamendi, State Senator (D-Stockton); Senate Majority Leader Kathleen Gordon, State Study Director, California Agriculture, League of Wanen Fbbert Gray, Director of Policy Developent, merican Farmland Trust, Service, Davis Associates; President, Thlare County Farm Bureau Sacramento housing developers), San Jose Voters of California, Westlake Village Washington, D.C.; formerly Executive Director, National Agricultural Lands Deni Greene, Director, GDvernor's Office of Planning and Research, Sacramento Tom M. Hannigan, Assemblyman (D-Fairfield); Chairman, Assembly Cornittee on *John F. Henning, Executive Secretary+easurer, California Labor Federation, Adin A. Hester, Manager, Olive Growers Council of California, Visalia Joseph C. &ugh, Jr., Dean, School of Theology at Claremnt Charles R. Imbrecht, Assemblyman (R-Ventura); Vice Chairman, Assembly Joseph A. Janelli, Director, kvernmental Affairs, California Farm Bureau Huey D. Johnson, Secretary for Resources, State of California, Sacramento Peter C. Kremer, President, The Irvine Company, Newport Beach Richard G. Lillard, author and historian; mer, Los Angeles kqional Water Robert Long, Ekecutive Director, Council of California Growers, San Mate0 Peggy Mensinger, Mayor of Modesto Larry Orman, Executive Director, People for Open Space, San Francisco Talbot Page, Senior Research Associate in Economics, California Institute of Joseph E. Petrillo, Executive Officer, State Coastal Conservancy, Oakland Robert Presley, State Senator (D-Riverside); Chairman, Senate Cwrmittee on Richard E. Fbminger, Director, California Department of Food and Agriculture, Paul F. Smith, attorney, Los Angeles; Chairman, Board of Trustees, California William B. Staiger, Executive Vice President, California Cattlemen's st* Energy and Natural Resources AFL-CIO, San Francisco Comi ttee on Ways and Means Federation, Sacramento Quality Control Board Technology, Pasadena Natural Resources and Wildlife Sacramento Institute of Public Affairs (ex officio) Association, Sacramento Continued. . . -2- Geoffrey Wandesforde-Smith, Associate Professor of Political Science and Charles Warren, President, Charles Warren & Associates, Sacramento: formerly Thomas H. Willoughby, Chief Consultant, Assembly Cornittee on Energy ad Natural William W. Wcxki, Jr., Economist, Cooperative Ektension, Lhiversity of John Zierold, .~ .. _" Sacramento Representative, Sierra Club, Sacramento Director, Institute of Ecology, thiversity of California, Davis Chairman, President's Council on Environmental Quality Resources, Sacramento California, Riverside Helen Putnam, Supervisor, Sonoma County -. "" "- . - .." . .. ~- - .. .. - . " *Elected by Task Force at its first meeting m 6/28/82; pending response. The Task Force also voted to add an additional representative of real estate developers, and a county supervisor to be designated by the County Supervisors Association of California. 7/1/8 2 California Farmlands Project Working Paper #1 Revised September 1982 AGRICULTURAL LAND PRESERVATION IN CALIFORNIA: AN OVERVIEW DANIEL A. MAZMANIAN California Institute of Public Affairs An Affiliate of The Claremont Colleges P. 0. Box 10, Claremont, California 917 1 1 THE CALIEORNIA INSTITUTE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, founded in 1969 and affiliated with The Clarermnt alleges, is an independent, mnpmfit foundation for research, .publishing, and public service. Our main prpose is to wrk for better amnunication of facts, ideas, and opinion about the character, problems, and future developnent of California. A special interest is environmental d natural resource policy. catalyst. We try to help define the plblic interest by hinging together information from a wide variety of sources and translating it into usable form; bringing together people with disparate interests to find o3rm~x1 ground; and trying to bridge the gap between thought and action. have been published. They include The California Handbook (in its fourth edition), the California Ehvironmental Directory, and wlwnes on such topics as government, energy, social problems, business, poplation, and transportation. A catalog of publications is available on request . CIPA takes m position on political issues; rather, we see our mle as a CIPA is best bwn for its information guides, of which nearly a hundred Preparation of this paper was supported by a grant from the California Legislature, atbninistered by the state Department of Food and Agriculture; a grant from the California Quncil for the Humanities, state affiliate of me National Rxbmnt for the Humanities; and funds of the California Institute of Pub1 ic Affairs . Copyright Q 1982, California Institute of Public Affairs -3- Urbanization of agricultural land is one of the mt important and difficult resource issues facing California. The California Farmlands Project has been formed by the California Institute of Public Affairs to investigate options for preserving agricultural land and arrive at specific recormendations for long-range state policies and programs that will have wide support arrong all of the groups ooncerned with the problem. Our project is a axprative me involving many arganizations. It is supported by a major grant from the state legislature and guided by a task force composed of members of the Legislature, heads of state government departments and agencies, and high-ranking representatives of the agricultural oomunity, the mnservation mement, developers, landowners, snd city and oounty government. Also included are scholars in economics, history, political science, and social ethics. This paper gives an overview of the problem md outlines some possible future oourses of action. It was prepared for discussion purposes for the first meeting of the project task force, held in Sacramento on June 28, 1982, md does not represent a statement of policy. The author, miel A. Mazmanian, is principal consultant for the California Farmlands Project. He is Associate Professor of Government and Director of the Program in Public Policy Analysis at Fmma Cbllege in Qaremnt. For their annnents m an earlier version of the paper, we thank Feter Detwiler, Cbnsultant to the state Senate bmittee on Local Government; Jerry Moles, Director of the Program in Food, Iand, and Power at ma College; Kinberly Mueller of the state Department of Conservation; and Larry &man, Executive Director of People for Open spacer San Fkancisco. However, the author is solely responsible for its oontents. The California Farmlands Project will include public meetings d seminarsr a major statewide oonference, md various publications, including a regular newsletter. It will oonclude with a final report to the Governor and the Legislature in the spring of 1984. We invite your participation. THADDEIls c. TRZYNA President California Institute of public Affairs -5- The Era of Growth. 'Ihat agricultural lands in California are in red of "protection" may be open to debate. Looking to direct farm inmme, at least the aggregate picture shows steady and strong long-term growth. Over the last decade, farm income gross receipts have risen from $4.5 billion in 1970 to $13.4 billion in 1981 (with a peak figure of $13.7 billion in 1980), generating additionally three times that arrxlnt for the state's eaonomy through agriculture-related activities [l]. Today, California is the leading agricultural state ad ranks first in production of 49 different crop and livestock products. Acarding bo 1980 figures, milk ($1.78 billion) is number one ammg the state's 250 different agricultural products, follawed by cattle ad calves ($1.44 billion), atton ($1.39 billion) , and grapes ($1.22 billion). Nearly a quarter of the state's total farm production is nm being sold abroad. Export crop receipts are led by ootton (over $1 billion, representing nearly 53% of total U.S. ootton exports), almonds ($339 million), wheat ($248 million), ad rice ($259 million). Though the amdition of the mncmy over the past year, especially high interest rates, has mticeably hurt the agricultural sector, in light of the prosperous long-term trend, this may be viewed as mly a brief deviation fram the trend1 ine . Viewed in terms of relative productivity, California's 33.4 million acres of agricultural land, though munting for only 3% of the nation's total farmland, produced nearly 10% of the muntry's agricultural cash receipts for 1980. It is not surprising to find, therefore, that eight of the nation's ten leading agricultural oounties are located within the state's brders. California has also experienced an extraordinary growth in new land brought under cultivation, due largely to expansion of irrigation systems in the San Joaquin Valley and the southern part of the state. Over the last 40 years, acres of irrigated land have increased from 4.3 million to 9 . 4 million [ 21. mrging Problem. What, then, is the cause for amcern? Several trends over the past decades axl changing circunstances suggest the wwer. Ihe two most alarming trends in land use patterns are the ever-amtinuing @enomemn of urban sprawl, and "parcellation" of open space ad agricultural lands. The process and amsequences of sprawl are quite familiar. With the pst-Fbrld War I1 surge in California's population ad 110 ppular msensus behind amprehensive state or local restrictions on new residential tracts ad amnercial enterprise, developnent took place in a hodgepodge mer, ming away fram the traditional urban centers in a poliferation of low-lensity, sprawling suburban and semi-autonamxls amunities. This resulted in a checkerboard pattern of developrent exacerbated by the postwar expansion of new mads and highways that facilitated persondl travel on a scale never before realized, placing ever-increasing pressure on the countryside. Due to actual oonversion of farms, the often inanptible nature of urban and agricultural activities, and the speculative bidding of land -6- prices adjacent to urban mmplexes, much of California's best agricultural land has been irreversibly lost to production. The mentum of the process has been hard to stop, fueled as it is by city and county governments reaching for new revenues and new power, as well as private developers who have found it mre profitable to direct urban developent outward, rather than making it mre conpact, efficient, and less mnsumptive of the state's precious land resource. Parcellation -- the division of large bldings into smaller ones -- compounds the problems created by sprawl. Subdivision often results in parcels that are too mall for mnnercially efficient agriculture. It is a process extremely oonsumptive of both crop and range land, which can extend up to 20 miles into the oountryside from the edge of urbanization, and it has had substantial impact in many sections of California. For example, in the San Francisoo Bay Area it has been estimated that as much farmland has been lost to ranchette and like parcellation as to direct urban developent; 700,000 acres of farmland has been lost in the region in recent decades, representing fully one fourth of the farmland available in 1949 [31. Similarly, in the mastal foothills of San Luis Cbispo Qunty, between 1969 and 1977 the nmber of holdings snaller than five acres rose by 55% and those between five and 25 acres rose by 22%, while those between 25 and 50 acres dropped by 11% and those greater than 100 acres declined by 21%. In their recent book, The Market for Rural Land, Ibbert Healy and James Short report on both the speculative fever that caused this rapid parcellation, its deleterious effects on the landscape, and the pblems it has left for the county government [ 41 . For several reasons, parcellation can have a devastating impact on agriculture. Smaller parcels may man an end to a previously productive use. It can also create incompatible uses that have a far greater impact on production than straight mnversion of farmland to urban uses. Philip Raub feels strongly about this. In surveying the agricultural landscape nationally, he states: We have a rapidly expanding area in which the types of agricultural activity must mnform to mnfarm mncepts of appropriate land use. Dust from field cultivation, mise from tractors wrking at night, odors from livestock, use of toxic chemicals and fertilizers -- these are all aspects of dern agriculture that generate resentment or fear in nonfarm rural residents. Above a relatively low density of rural residential land use, these fears become mnstraints on the farminu mode. This restriction is of much greater potential ,importance th& any loss of land in acre terms [emphasis added] [5] . On the urban fringe, moreover, parcellation leading ultimately to the demise of agriculture is an evolutionary, almost imperceptible process that recent research suggests follows a 2Oyear cycle [6] . merefore, avoiding the attendant problems requires intervention before parcellation of large bldings occurs, or at least early cn in the process. Reacting after the fact, even by trying to reassemble large tracts, is extraordinarily difficult and very mstly. Only a long-range program can bpe to address this problem adequately. -7- A precise and statistically accurate picture of amversion and disruption of agricultural lands in California is mt currently available. Though the statistical picture is incomplete, basic trends reported in various federal emd state documents have been integrated into a fairly mprehensive cwerview in a special report of the Farmlands Qnservation Project sponsored by Eeople for Open Space [7]. The picture that merges shows trends of growth hr some types of farmland and decline for others, with a long-term net loss. At the beginning of the postwar era, new lands being brought into irrigation (about 2.7 million acres between 1940 and 1954) outpaced land converted to urban uses or withdrawn from qriculture. In 1954, the total amount of land in farm use rose to a high pint of 37.8 million acres statewide. From then on, however, newly-irrigated land brought under cultivation was mt sufficient to offset the ambination of (a) the already-irrigated land lost to nonfarm uses (between 1960-1972, the 80,000 acres being irrigated for the first time =re offset by 22,000 acres lost to urbanization); (b) a dramatic decline in grazing and pasture land from a peak of 4.2 million acres in 1940 to 1.6 million acres in 1978, due to changes in grazing practices, amversion, and parcellation; and (c) a mdest decline in btal cropland (from 12.9 million acres in 1940 to 1 1.7 million acres in 1978). The net result, using the figures for 1 967-77, is a permanent loss of all types of farmland in California of 150,000 acres per year. Of this munt, based on figures for 1959-78, cropland (as opposed to rangeland) has been lost at the rate of 64,000 acres per year. It is imprtant to rote that a disproportionate munt of the land being permanently lost is prime farmland; this is variously estimated to be between 26,000 and 59,000 acres per year, depending on how the term "prime" is defined. - Finally, the best available estimate of the reserve of farmland in California, according b the People for Open Space report, is 2.81 million acres. 3his is derived from the U.S. Soil Conservation Service's 1977 National Resources Inventory and represents land with high or medium (as opposed to low) potential amversion to cropland based an factors of climate, soil qality, and water availability, and whether similar land had been averted in the recent past [8]. While dramatic changes in market anditions can alter the estimate of land available for cultivation, it is unlikely that this will occur within the foreseeable future. Remnciling the Divergent Trends. The factors that have enabled agricultural productivity' and income to remain high in the face of the dwindling agricultural land base are plant breeding, massive energy substitution, and irrigation. Though many are mnfident of further increases in productivity through genetic engineering, the scope of such increases must remain problematic -- speculation on this issue is legion. We probably know mre' &out the other tw inputs. me process of energy substitution over the past three decades -- increasing productivity with machines and synthetic fertilizers -- has by many estimates leveled off. Vernon Ruttan, me of the auntry's leading students of agricultural technology, ties this directly to the changing picture of fossil fuel supplies and the current slackening off of plblicly-supported agricultural research . -8- He argues that it is highly unlikely that agricultural productivity in the United States can sustain the 2.2% annual rate of growth experienced between 1965-79, a rate that "was the highest for any sustained period since the turn of the entury." Further, we will be fortunate in the arming decades to realize a growth rate of even 1.5 'to 1.6% [9] . The masons are many, but basically they mne down to the declining real energy prices of the 1950s and OS, which facilitated energy substitutions in herican agriculture on an mprecedented level, and the inescapable prospect that "the real price of energy enbodied in agricultural inputs will rise in the future" [ 101. The same can be said for water, which has been supplied relatively cheaply over the past three decades through subsidies of water delivered to agriculture (by the State Water Project, for exmple) ; and through 30 years of groundwater overdrafting in some of the State's key aquifers, such as those in the qqer San win Valley. Every sign today - from state Department of Water Faesources and independent projections to plblic sentiment as expressed in the defeat on June 8th of Proposition 9 - points to XI end of the era of building massive water delivery systems or any other expensive murces of water for California agriculture. The implication is that the single factor mst responsible for almost all of the new cropland brought into production over the past three decades, expansion of irrigation, is rn longer either politically OT eaonosnically available. In sum, it seems that e can m longer depend on techmlogy, energy substitutes, or irrigating new lands to replace the often highly-productive lands that are being irretrievably lost urban sprawl ad parcellation (to say nothing of salinization ad erosion). We war lm have entered a era when it will be necessary to treat land available for agriculture as a "fixed" mmmdity. Mreover, this will be occurring just as the demand for food ad fiber mrldwide will be nushrooming to meet the changing dietary patterns of newly4eveloped and developing oomtries and the 3-5 billion increase in global popdation projected over the rrext several decades. Over the past 25 years, Californians of quite different perspectives - urban, agricultural, mservationist -- have started to see the trends I have outlined as ultimately destructive of one of the state's richest, mst productive, md mst beautiful Mtural resources, and they have atterrplted to restrain both the urban sprawl and the mdermining of agriculture that occurs with parcellation ad incompatible rural developnent. At the state level, this has mainly taken the form of (a) property tax benefits for farmland owners vho agree mt to mvert their land tm nonagricultural uses, specifically, the California Land Conservation ?kt of 1965 (the Williamson Act); (b) the requirement that all cities ad amties develop a general plan to rationalize and regulate growth, in part to ensure protection of open space ad minimize encroachment onto agricultural land; and (c) the effort to mrdinate land use ad developnent programs between amties and the cities located within them through Local Agency Fbnnation Qmnissions (LAFcas) in all munties of the State except San Francisco. -9- The Williamson Act. !he record of these attempts to preserve qricultural lands is mixed at best, as suggested by the continuing loss of 150,000 acres annually. Thus, while it is true that as of 1980 over 25,000 square miles of California farmlands were mvered by Williamson Act oontracts, there is little evidence that the act alone (without stringent agricultural zoning) has done much to curb mnversion. Setting aside the fact that the program is prely voluntary and that eleven munties have sinply declined to participate in it -- including the agriculturally important oounties of Imperial, krced, Sutter, and Yuba -- the tax benefits have been least attractive to landowners often where the designers of the act amsidered it mst vital, and they have been taken advantage of by landowners in the areas that are least threatened by imnediate conversion 'Ibis is illustrated vividly in the study by mvid Hansen and Seymour Schwartz at UC Davis of how the Williamson Act has been implemented in Sacramento and Yo10 munties, in which they found that: no...contracts were accepted by owners expecting developnent within 10 years, and that only 4 out of 21 who expected developnent in 10 to 20 years were willing to accept a omtract. Nearly all contracts were held by owners expecting developnent to occurr mre than 20 years - hence [enphasis &led] [l 1 I. Their mclusion: "we believe that the is primarily a tax relief measure and mst be justified m that basis ." [12] Even as general tax relief, which might be justified as an indirect way of encouraging farming, the value of the act for the agricultural landowner has diminished greatly with passage of Proposition 13, the Jarvis-Gann tax reduction intitiative of 1978, and very few contracts have been signed since. General Plans and LAFCOs. State law requires each oounty and city to prepare and adopt a "csomprehensive, long-term general plan for the @ysical developnent" of the,amnunity. me plan can also reach beyond the oomnunity's boundaries when outlying territory bears relation to the planning [ 131. Specific elements required in the plan include circulation (transportation), conservation, land se, mise, open space, safety, scenic highway, and seismic safety. -st relevant t~ agricultural land protection are the land use, mnservation, and open space elements; in addition, a few amunities have developed distinct agricultural elements in their general plans. Tb mediate boundary disputes among cities and betwen cities and counties, a Local Agency Ebrmation Qmnission was established in each munty by the Knox-Nisbet Act of 1963. LAFcas, aich are oomposed of representatives of county government, the incorporated cities within the munty, and the general public, were created to "-vert planning in the urban fringe to a rational and logical process" [14] . By enpowering LAFcas in 1971 to identify "spheres of influence" for the ultimate physical bodary md service area of each local government entity, including special districts, the Iegislature added a planning role in curbing urban sprawl and at the same time protecting valuable agricultural lands. - coordination function to the LAFCO mandate and greatly enhanced their potential -1 0- However, with little real political pwer over local agencies, the IAFcas have been effective only in those few instances where aunty governments have been willing to delegate them mrne real responsibility for annprehensive planning. Hence, the recent finding by the Governor's Office of Planning and Research that although ten years have elapsed since the kgislature wired them to designate spheres of influence, "less than one-fifth of the IAFcas have adopted spheres for all their cities and special districts." [15] Record of Acconq?lishnts. In practice, then, while several -1s have been plt at the disposal of state and local officials, mly a few locally-initiated efforts seem to have led to any significant effort at agricultural land preservation as a result of general plans or any other technique. This is clearly &own in a recent OPR survey of all 58 counties of the use of techniques already available for planning and regulating agricultural land use -- techniques that include land area mapping; agricultural area mapping; monitoring of amversion; ampletion of the general plan land use element, oonservation element, open space element, and agricultural element; designation of spheres of influence; designation of urban-rural boundary lines; large and small lot zoning; and Williamson Act participation. By these criteria, only tw munties in the state, Fresno and San Bernardino, scored high in terms of the "steps taken" to rationalize urban growth and protect agricultural lands. (They were followed by Santa Cruz, and then the grouping of El Dorado, San Diego, Santa Barbara; Santa Clara, Sonma, and Tuolumne.) [16] Viewed fm the standpoint of amprehensiveness and effectiveness of farmland protection @icy, as opposed to breadth of planning activities per se, Sacramento County and the City of Hesto in Stanislaus Qunty ere given high marks in a recent study by Ibbert Johnston, plblished by the Soil Conservation Society of Anerica [17]. He bases his opinion on Sacramento County's masing approach to growth, as well as its dramatic reclassification back to agricultural zoning of some 25% of its undeveloped land in the mid-1970s; and Modesto's ampact growth policies, which include restrictions on seer hookups and enlarged lot sizes to deter sprawl. There is also the ample of the recent efforts of the State Qastal Conservancy b address the problem of farmland preservation in the axstal zone, which has an estimated 3.5 million acres of land devoted to grazing, dairy production, and fruits and vegetables. Farmland preservation has been incorporated into several broader Conservancy projects, such as the Aliso Viejo Greenbelt in southern Orange Qunty, the Wavecrest Subditision Project in the City of Half bn Bay, the Tia Juana River National Estuary aDld Sanctuary Project along the &xican border, and a substantial preservation effort (1,500 acres of farmland) in the lbmales Bay Project in Marin Qunty. Yet, even with these several techniques available, California's record in preserving farmlands is poor. There, have been some valiant efforts made ax3 a few successes locally, but in general the process of sprawl, parcellation, ad destruction of important agricultural land proceeds mchecked. Lacking statewide standards ,for farmland protection and some effective means of implementing them, it is implausible that any major inroads will be made into the seemingly relentless process of agricultural land anversion. -1 1- The challenge is a difficult one: If it is necessary for us to dopt a radically different orientation toward California's agricultural land -- that it is a finite resource with little available reserve, and that we should and must preserve it for future generations -- what, then, is the call to action? ltm courses suggest themselves . The Market Economy. The first is b rely on the market to allocate current and reserve farmland, under the assumption that the resulting distribution among all possible uses will be the mst "efficient .I' We auld expect that, as agricultural land antinued to be mnverted to other uses ad as demand for food and fiber produced on the remaining land led to higher prices, the land remaining in agriculture muld eventually rise in value to the point of curbing conversion. For example, at today's prices, there is an estimated $1 0,000 to $21,000 per-acre developent value associated with agricultural land in Ventura Oounty. That is, by the dictates of the market, the land is presently mrth mre for urban use than for its present agricultural use. Unrestrained, the response to this .situation muld be for the land to be mnverted, parcel by parcel, to the point where developnent pressures were sufficiently relieved and land under cultivation was sufficiently shrunk so that the plre agricultural value of the land wuld be equal to or in excess of its developent value. The obvious virtue of this approach is that it requires little by way of governmental intervention or imnediate plblic outlay. The drawbacks are the problems attendant with incompatible uses that often result when owners who convert are indifferent or insensitive to agricultural needs, and the irreversible nature of the allocation decisions: once a showing mall, never again a productive field. Further, when the agricultural land base is eroded to the point where mre agricultural production is required, as Californians, as Americans, we will have few places to turn. Government Intervention. Steps to impede the market allocation of farmland in favor of protection can be justified on the basis of aesthetics, rational planning, orderly long-range developnent, and/or preserving the character ad way of life of a region, but perhaps mst importantly as a hedge against future needs for this mst vital resource. However, although the direct asts of such a policy can be fairly well determined, because they are borne by individuals and amm-tunities in the present, the benefits, particularly those associated with maintaining future options for society, can only be estimated. Assuming that the need is perceived as sufficiently ampelling, the question imnediately raised is that of the distribution of msts b the present generation -- in other mrds, dm pays? The manner in vhich these msts are -sed has b do mainly with political acceptability. The methods available range from one extreme whereby msts are borne by the present landowners, to the other extreme in which the plblic assumes all of the financial burden. At one end of the spectrum, then, are those programs which use the police power of the state to restrict anversion through fiat; at the other are those which require the government b enter the -1 2- market and plrchase (and retire) the developent rights to the land. The regulatory or police powers approach -- planning, zoning, spheres of influence, urban-rural boundaries, special-use designations -- has the theoretical virtues of requiring minimal direct mst to government, ind being comprehensive and definitive. All uses of land can be prescribed by law adl controls are mnstitutionally justifiable as being in the broad "plblic interest." In recognition of the fact that restricting the right to freely develop agricultural land can adversely affect its market value, and as a matter of equitable taxation, regulatory mechanisms are often used in omjunction with one or mre forms of property or inoome tax relief. The nost mmprehensive and notable exanple of the regulatory approach to date is Oregon's statewide planning and land-use designation prOgram, which is aimed at prescribing both agricultural mne boundaries and 20year urban growth boundaries that should set the pattern of land use in that state into the foreseeable future [ 181 . The dravhacks to this approach are that it is very difficult in practice to persuade both governmental officials and the plblic-at-large that owners of private property, especially wricultural and other open-space land, should be deprived of the privilege of developing their land acoording to the dictates of the market. This widely-shared reluctance to restrict property owners, dined with the ability of owners ad developnent interests to organize adl directly influence the political process, has traditionally mitigated irgainst regulatory approaches being successful in protecting my substantial tracts of farmland. Even where the power of the state has been so imposed, the pressure to reverse restrictive decisions is evewesent and sentiments can swing away from public protection, as evidenced today in California by the extensive lobbying to undermine the protectionist land-use authority of the California Coastal Comnission and, nationally, by the Wagan Administration's pposal to auction off enomus tracts of urdeveloped plblic land. In short, mmprehensive planning and mning, particularly where preservation or a minimal level of developnent is the objective, has too often faltered at the implementation stage, in spite of all its mnceptual elegance. The alternative is for the government to enter the marketplace directly md actually plrchase ind retire the developnent rights of property deemed imprtant for maintaining the integrity of the agricultural base. "be several "plrchase of developnent rights" (PDR) programs initiated since 1976 in Suffolk County, New York; King County, Washington; Maryland; and Massachusetts exemplify this approach [19]. A variant of the PDR system is presently before the California Legislature (AB 3379, referred to interim study), aimed at creating a California Agricultural Land Trust that muld, mng other things, plrchase developnent rights . The transfer of developnent credits (sametimes called developnent rights) approach adopted in California by the Coastal Comnission and Coastal 'bnservancy and mst recently by the City of Qarmt in Us IIngeles County, is an interesting variation of the PDR concept. Mer TDC, developers in one area are required to plrchase developnent credits from mother area slated for apen space or agricultural use, as the price of exceeding the authorized developnent -1 3- density in the developnent area. In effect, the developer in the Rceiving area is granted dded developnent rights by the planning authority in exchange for retiring the developnent rights on some other site on behalf of the public-at-large. ?he developnent rights on the targeted site are thus purchased, at market value, without use of public funds. obviously, this relieves the public of the financial burden while ensuring protection for the designated lands. But it does so at what many of those required to purchase the developnent credits mnsider to be an unfair and excessive burden they are being forced to assume on behalf of the plblic. There seems to be m way of escaping the fact that any actions taken by government to preserve agricultural lands ultimately bil down b exercising me of tw powers of the state -- regulatory authority, or directly entering the market. ?he issue of which strategy or mix of strategies is the best public policy for California needs to be engaged both at the theoretical level (which policy best serves the "public interest") and at the implementation level (which policy is likely to result in the preservation of the mst farmland at the lowest possible oost). The points raised above suggest a range of activities that the California Farmlands Project should be undertaking over the next twelve mnths and beyond. Issue Definition. To begin with, greater clarity is needed in defining the nature and dimension of what is being referred to as the agricultural lands preservation "problem." A better profile of past trends in agricultural land conversion and parcellation at the local and regional level in California is imperative -- and is already in the process of being developed by several organizations. Also needed is a mre articulate rationale for acting m to preserve California agricultural lands, in light of the mst probable murse of future events and consequent demand for the resource. - Inventory Present Techniques. Assuming that the project task force reaches consensus on the need for action, our first step should be b look at the ranqe and viability of preservation techniques. This-muld first involve an inventory and evaluation of present California state and local government mandates and programs, and the prospects for strengthening them. Not to be overlooked along these lines are the resources of private land trusts. Explore New Concepts. IXpally important is an exploration of newr concepts and techniques of farmland preservation that may suggest a dramatically different murse of action for California. This muld include analysis of the omprehensive statewide urban-agricultural designations of the sort currently underway in Oregon; extensive tax-relief programs of the type adopted in Wisconsin; transfer of developnent rights as =lied to farmland in some oounties of New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, ad Maryland; and the purchase of developnent rights programs in operation in several eastern states. Finally, it muld be meful to explore the "land banking" programs operated by several muntries in Western Europe. -1 4- Foster Dialogue. Of paramount importance to the broad mission of the California Farmlands Project is to initiate ad encourage a dialogue throughout the state on the issue of preservation of agricultural lands. This should be as broadbased as possible. Such a dialogue will lay the foundation for hatever imnediate or long-range efforts are undertaken by Californians to address the need for producing food and fiber for both the domestic am3 international markets. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. Unless otherwise indicated, state sumnary statistics are taken frun "California PgricUlture," prepared by the &search Department, Security Pacific Bank, Decenber 1981. "California's Farmland Resources: A Sumnary of Current Information," Special Report #5, Farmlands Conservation Project, Rxple for (&en Space, San Francism, Wvember 1981, Chart 4; and mrrespondence from Larry man, Executive Director, POS, June 21, 1982. California Way (Planning md Qnservation League, Sacramento), lbl. 12 (Feb. 1982), p. 2. Fbbert G. Healy and James L. Short, The Market for Rural Land: Trends, Issues, Fdicies (Washington, D.C.: The Qnservation Foundation, 1981.) Philip M. Raub, "Competition for Land and the Future of herican Agriculture," in Sandra S. &tie md Fbbert G. Healy (eds.), The Future of American-Agriculture as a Strategic Resource (Washington, D.C. : The Conservation Foundation, 1980), p. 55. H. James Brown, Fbbyn Phillips, and Neal mberts, "Land Markets at the Urban Fringe," Journal of the American Planning Association, lbl. 47 (April 1981) . "California's Farmland Resources." "Californials Fannland Resources," p. 6. Vernon Fbttan, "Agricultural Research and the Fbture of knerican Agriculture," in The Future of American Aqriculture as a Strategic Resource, p. 138. 10. Ruttan, p. 145. 1 1 . mvid E . Hansen md S. I. Schwartz, "Landowner Behavior at the Rural-Urban Fringe in F&spnse to Preferential Property Taxation." Land Ekonomics, lbl. 4 (November 1975), p. 348. 12. Hansen and Schwartz, p. 351 . A similar oonclusion was reached in a recent examination of Michigan's tax incentive program der its Farmland ad Open -1 5- Smce Act of 1974; milip D. Gardner and Donald N. mazier, "The Michiqan F';irmland Preservation &ram: An Evaluation," Journal of hi1 and Water Conservation, 36 (November-Dece@xr 1981), pp. 344 - 347. 13. Office of Planning md Research, "State of California General Plan Guide1 ines ," Sacramento, September 1 0, 1 98 1 . 14. John Martin ells, "IAFCO Sphere of Influence: Effective Planning for the Urban Fringe," Working Paper 77-3, Institute of Governmental Studies, University of California, Berkeley, p. 5. 15. Office of Planning md Research, "Land Use, LAFCOS, and Logic in City Annexations," memorandun, September 21, 1981, p. 3. 16. Peter Detwiler, "Saving the Good Earth: What California Qunties are Doing to mnserve Agricultural Land," Off ice of Planning and Research, Sacramento, October 1 981 . 17. Fbbert Johnston, "Qen Space Protection through Land Use Cbntrol: A Review of Methods with California Exmples," in Walter E. Jeske (ed.), Emmics, Ethics, Ecology: mts of Productive Conservation (Ankeny, Iowa: Soil Conservation Society of merica, 1980), pp. 380-391. 18. Owen J. Furuseth, "The Oregon Agricultural Protection Program: A &view ind Assessment ,I1 Natural Resources Journal, Vol . 20 (July 1 980) , pp . 603-61 4. 19. Fbbert E. Qughlin and John C. -ne (senior authors and ditors), "The Protection of Farmland: A Bference Guidebook for State and Local GOVernments," issued by the National Agricultural Lands Study (Washingbn, D.C.: U.S. CDvernment Printing Office,, 1981), (3-1. 7. - 8 I California Institute of Public Affairs An Affiliate of The Claremont Colleges P.O. Box 10, Claremont, California 91711 California Farmlands Project The California Institute of Public Affairs, an affiliate of The Clarermnt Colleges, is sponsoring a cmperative project to investigate options for preserving agricultural lands in California and arrive at specific recomnendations for state policy that will have wide support mng all of the groups concerned with the problem: farmers, amservationists, landowners, developers, consumers, and state and local governments. The California Farmlands Project is funded by a major grant from the state Legislature and guided by a broadly representative task force, aided by political scientists, emmists, planners, and consultants from other fields. The results of the project will be widely publicized and presented to the Governor and Legislature in the spring of 1984. Conversion of agricultural land is one of the mst important and difficult resource issues facing California. Over the last decade alone, 1.5 million acres of California agricultural land were converted to urban and other mnfarm uses; of these, 500,000 acres were prime farmland. Unless mnething is done about it, agricultural lands will oontinue to be lost to other uses at the rate of 150,000 acres a year. Until mw, most of this has taken place in Southern California and in the San Francisco Bay Area; in the future, it is likely that much of it will occur in the San Joaquin Valley, which is acre for acre the mst productive farmland on earth. Protection of prime agricultural land has been an issue in California since at least the mid-1950s. People give different reasons for their aoncern, depending on their perspective. For example, a shrinking supply of land presents farmers with problems of mt only space itself, but also increasing costs in rent and taxes. Environmentalists often view the issue in terms of loss of open space and rural landscapes. Others see it in terms of increases in food prices or loss of capacity to feed hungry people abroad. Nearly everyone agrees, bwever, about the importance of peserving agriculture as a keystone of the economy of California, the muntry's number one farm state. Although agriculture mkes up less than three percent of the gross state product, farm production is the vital link in an ecmnomic chain involving Page 2 hundreds of thousands of Californians. For some mrrmodities, like Tapes, canning tomatoes, almonds, olives, and lemns, this state accounts for all or almost all of U.S. production, Even though people give different reasons for their mncern, there is broad agreement that existing measures designed to limit anversion of agricultural lands, such as local planning and zoning and the California Land Conservation Act of 1965 (the Williamson Act), have been largely ineffectual, and that other solutions are needed. But regulatory approaches such as those used to limit developnent in the California mastal zone have become politically unpopular and have little chance of being enacted, except for a few critical areas. A key question is bw to compensate proprty owners for the "wipeout" of property values that occurs when land in the path of urbanization is limited to producing food and fiber. Other important questions include deciding exactly what kinds of lands should be protected; the kinds of exemptions that should be allowed; the respective roles of state and local governments: where new developnent should be directed if mnversion of farmland is restricted: and &IO pays for farmland preservation. TEE TIME IS RIPE There is renewed interest in the problem both nationally and in California. The findings of the National Z4gricultural Lands Study, issued early in 1981 by the President's Council m Ehvironmental Quality and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (a million acres of important farmland are irreversibly lost to agriculture every year in the United States) have received a gcd deal of attention in the media. National mnservation, planning, and agricultural associations have taken up the cause for the first time in a serious way, and new groups have been formed in Washington to focus specifically cn preserving agricultural lands. In California, the state Department of Conservation has launched an inventory of farmlands statewide, and the Governor signed a bill early in 1982 requiring records to be kept on how much farmland is lost each year to urban developnent. People for Open Space, a regional planning group in the Bay Area, recently completed a major farmlands mnservation study. The California Farm Bureau Federation held a special mnference for its leaders on the problem in October 1982. The League of Wmen Voters of California has adopted agricultural lands as a priority issue for study and action. The Sierra Club has reactivated its California agricultural lands mmnittee. Local groups, often led by farmers, have organized to wrk on the problem in many areas of the state. The time is ripe to take a fresh look at what can be done about the problem at the state level in California. The role of our California Farmlands Project is to try to pull together these separate efforts, find mmn ground among all of the major groups mncerned, and arrive at specific findings, mnclusions, and recornendat ions Page 3 If regulatory approaches like those used to control developent along the California coastline are impractical for preserving farmland except in a few critical areas, so also is the approach taken by the last major agricultural land protection bill introduced in the California Ugislature, AB 15 in the 1975-76 session, authored by then-Assemblyman Charles Warren. It muld have used a ambination of zoning and preferential tax assessments to deal with the problem and had fairly broad support at the time, but it is no longer viable because Proposition 13, the Jarvis-Gann property tax reduction measure, has largely obviated the 4vantages of property tax relief. We need some new ideas. Among the mncepts that we are exploring are public and private land trusts (which purchase land and resell or lease it with restrictions on use and development); "purchase of developnent rights" (in which the right to develop is purchased from owners of specific parcels, leaving the owner all other rights of ownership) ; "transfer of developent rights" (in which rights to develop lands in a designated preservation area may be purchased by a developer and transferred to a designated development area where the equivalent amount of additional development can be amstructed); and incentives that help direct growth into existing urban areas (infill). We are also looking at the agricultural land preservation programs of several foreign countries hose approaches have been little used in the United States. Because of differences in political and economic systems and public attitudes, resource management programs developed abroad can rarely ke transferred directly to the U.S. However, we hope to get some good ideas and see how they might be translated into options for California. There will be no single solution to a problem as complex as preserving agricultural lands, especially in a state as diverse as California. Whatever proposals we mme up with must of fer several paths and leave plenty of mom for local choice. The project is guided by the 38-member California Farmlands Project Task Force, which is mmposed of members of the Legislature and high-ranking representatives from the agricultural mmunity, the amservation mvement, developers, the planning profession, concerned state agencies, and city and county government. Also included are academics from the fields of agricultural emnomics, economics, history, political science, and social ethics. The task force is roughly patterned after the broadly representative California Land-Use Task Force sponsored by the Planning and Conservation Fourdation in the mid-'70s. Its members, appointed by the Board of Trustees of the California Institute of Public Affairs, were chosen after mnsulting leaders in each of the various groups represented. The task force will approve all mnclusions and recomnendations ma3e in its name. Any dissents or minority opinions will be included in the project's final report. A list of task force members is available from the California Institute. Page 4 Chairman of the California Farmlands Project is Thaddeus C. (Tea) Trzyna, President of the California Institute of Public Affairs. He was formerly a U.S. Foreign Service officer in Africa and at the State Department in Washington. Active in the oonservation mvement for many years, he has served as a regional vice president of the Sierra Club and as chairman of the Sierra Club's International Cornittee. He has written or edited a number of books and articles in the field of natural resource management, and is a member of the Comnission on Environmental Planning of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) . He holds a Ph.D. in government from Claremnt Graduate School. Principal Consultant for the project is Daniel A. Mazmanian, Associate Professor of Government and Director of the Program in Public Policy Analysis at Wmna College in Claremnt. He was formerly a research associate at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. Dr. Mazmanian's main research interest is in how public policies are implemented, especially in the field of natural resources and the environment. He has led research projects on the implementation of the California Coastal Zone Conservation Act and the effectiveness of citizen participation in water resource decisions of the Army Corps of Ehgineers. He holds a Ph.D. from Washington University, St. Louis. Project Coordinator is Eleanor M. Cohen, Assistant Director of the California Institute of Public Affairs. bng active in civic affairs, she has been a member of the Claremnt City Council since 1974 and was myor of the city from 1980-82. Mrs. &hen is on the Executive Conanittee of the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) and served for several years as chairman of the Ehergy and Environment bmittee of SG. She is also a member of the Wvenue and Taxation Cornittee of the League of California Cities. Dr. Mamanian, the principal mnsultant, will be assisted by members of the faculties of The Claremont Colleges ad other institutions who will be asked to provide advice on specific aspects of the problem. Our project is building on, rather than trying to duplicate, the my recent research efforts done in the field of farmland preservation. While it is sharply focused on presenting options and recornendations to deal with California's special (and sometimes unique) problems, w also hope to amtribute to the national effort to protect agricultural lands. Our first step has been to make a thorough inventory of the literature published on the subject here and abroad since 1 970. 'Ihis will be published by the Institute early in 1983 as Preserving Agricultural Lands: An International Annotated Bibliography. Paqe 5 In carrying out our project, we will mrk closely with other organizations -- local, state, national, and international -- concerned with agricultural land preservation. ,Several of these organizations have been asked to participate as co-sponsors. The centerpiece of the California Farmlands Project will be a statewide, public mnference that will be held on April 18-19, 1983, in Visalia, mlare County, in the heart of the richest farmland of the San Joaquin Valley. This will be a mrking meeting to discuss specific options for state policy. The mnference has been funded by the California Council for the Humanities, state-based affiliate of the National Ehdoment for the Humanities. The Council has also funded production of a program for public radio to be based on the mnference. RESULTS Research results are being pblished in a series of mrking papers. A preliminary report will be suhnitted to state officials in April 1983. ?he final report of the Farmlands Project will be presented to the Governor and the Legislature in the spring of 1984. We plan to put on a road show of ane4ay seminars in several locations around the state, concentrating on areas here agricultural lands are mst threatened, to present the results of our study and get people interested in working on the issue. An important result of the project will be an informal netwxk of leaders who mme from very different "places" in society but who share a mncern for preserving farmlands. That, in itself, will be a significant contribution toward solving the problem. The bottom line is political action. Our recomnendations will have rn effect until they are translated into legislation and administrative policies. The California Institute of Public Affairs takes no position on legislative matters, but we expect that public officials and the members of our task force who represent political constituencies will take the required initiative. CALIFCIRNIA INSTI= OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS The California Institute of Public Affairs, founded in 1969 and affiliated with ?he Claremnt Colleges, is an independent, mnprofit foundation for research, publishing, and public service. Our main purpose is to wrk for better mmunication of facts, ideas, and opinion about the character, problems, and future developnent of California. A special interest is environmental and natural resource pol icy. CIPA takes rn position on political issues; rather, we see our role as a catalyst. We try to help define the plblic interest by bringing together information from a wide variety of sources and translating it into usable form; bringing ta~ether people with disparate interests to find comnon ground; and trying to bridge tiie qap between thought and action. . Page 5 CIPA is best known for its information guides, of vhich nearly a hundred have been published. "hey include me California Handbook (in its fourth edition), me California Enviromntal Directory, and volumes on such topics as government, energy, social problems, business, population, and transportation. Among other CIPA projects on natural resource problems have been a pioneering study of state environmental impact assessment programs, funded by the U.S. Ehviromntal Protection Pgency (which was used by several states in developing their own new programs); and a mnference which brought together the leaders of all parties mncerned with the safety, pollution, economic, mnsumer, and national security aspects of transporting Alaskan oil and natural gas through California prts. For further information, md to receive a newsletter md meeting announcemnts, contact : CALIFORNIA FARMLANDS pw3JEcT California Institute of Public Affairs P.O. Box 10 Claremont , California 9 171 1 Telephones : ( 71 4) 624-521 2 (714) 625-5527 Novernber 1982