American Farmland Trust recently released a new report about the ramifications of the loss of United States farm and ranch land. The disappearance of these acres is could make the country’s food security vulnerable and hinder the agricultural economy.
Agri-Pulse Communications took a deep dive into the report and subject in it’s recent webinar, “Farms under threat 2040: Choosing an abundant future.”
Sara Wyant, Agri-Pulse founder and editor, moderated the event and said there are a number of factors influencing the ability of farmers and ranchers to produce enough food to go around the country and globe.
Included on the panel were: Terry Crosby, U.S. Department of Agriculture’s chief of the Natural Resources Conservation Service; Kip Tom, CEO of Tom Farms LLC in Leesburg, Indiana, and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture and chief of the U.S. mission to the UN Agencies in Rome from 2019 to 2021; John Piotti, president of American Farmland Trust; and Katharine Burgess, vice president of land use and development at Smart Growth America.
Piotti painted a picture of the ideal farmland scene—one with rolling hills and fertile fields with resilient barns and humble homes dotting the landscape.
There might be economic struggles preventing the farm or ranch from being viable. Or the farmer or rancher might be retiring, or maybe another generation who would have loved to farm the land but the numbers wouldn’t work for them.
“The situation that will impact 40% of American farmers in the next two decades,” he said. “Their life savings rests on the land itself. So they must sell to pay for retirement.”
Selling the farm or ranch to a developer rather than “planting seeds” is a hard reality for many in rural America.
“The new report, ‘Farms under threat 2040: Choosing an abundant future’ is all about making good development choices now, that will give us the future we want and need,” according to Piotti.
In the report, they’ve projected three potential scenarios. The first—business as usual—assumes farmland will continue to be developed at the current pace. If this occurs another 18.4 million acres will be lost by 2040.
“That’s an area nearly the size of South Carolina,” he said. “Of this total, over 6 million acres will be converted to urban and highly developed land uses such as commercial buildings and moderate to high density residential development. The remainder, over 12 million acres, will change to low density residential areas both large lot subdivisions on the urban edge and scattered houses in rural areas.”
New development is necessary as population grows, but this level of conversion will use more land than what is needed.
“Such poorly planned development undermines the economic viability of our farms, global food security and the environment,” he said. “It pushes up greenhouse gas emissions by lengthening commutes and reinforcing car dependence.”
And because this conversion of farm and ranch land is concentrated around cities and towns, the smaller farms and ranches will be impacted the most. It also places an undue burden on local governments costing more for public services than it provides in taxes.
“Continuing on our current path, means that six states will convert over 10% of their ag land, threatening the future of farming there, he said. “More than 20 counties will convert over 40% of their remaining farmland perhaps most concerning nearly half of the conversion was occur on the nation’s most productive, versatile and resilient farmland, what we call nationally significant land.”
This “business as usual” scenario should alarm everyone, but AFT has an even more alarming scenario.
“We call it runaway sprawl. In this scenario, new development unfolds in an inefficient and wasteful manner,” he said. “Low density sprawl dominates the landscape with large lot housing tracts consuming massive amounts of farmland.”
New developments compete with farms and ranches for water, divide communities and strain delicate ecosystems. The runaway sprawl scenario projects that by 2040 more than 24 million acres of farmland, or more than 1 million acres will be lost or compromised every year. The figure from AFT includes 12 million acres of nationally significant land. And in many cases, this development will overrun small and midsize farms that serve local markets, according to Piotti said.
Another AFT scenario—build better cities—employs values to model a future where development is done with care and conservation in mind. In this projection, Piotti said farmland conversion would be cut by over 7 million acres compared to business as usual, can be cut by 13 and a half million acres and compared to our runaway sprawl scenario. Saving those 13 and a half million acres would support over 82,000 urban edge farms, produce 7.9 billion of annual agricultural output and provide 184,000 on farm jobs.
If someone owns farm or ranch land, they can consider protecting it with an agricultural conservation easement. When the land becomes a legacy that feeds future generations, people can push for better policy at all levels of government. This also means encouraging smart growth through comprehensive planning and sensible land use policies, advancing redevelopment and development that lessens development pressure on farms.
“It means doing more to permanently protect critical agricultural land, incentivizing farmers to keep farming and enacting the Uniform Petition of Heirs Property Act to help those families who have joint title retain ownership of their beloved farms,” he said.
Piotti said he’s frequently encountered people who aren’t alarmed by the current or potential loss of farmland in America.
“They either think that there is some inexhaustible supply of farmland elsewhere, which is not true,” he said. “Or that even with farmland loss, America will still have plenty of land to feed itself. That part may be true, but it is the wrong way to view it.”
NRCS point of view
Crosby appreciates the AFT report, and how it builds on a long-term and ongoing partnership between NRCS and AFT.
“This latest report will help the NRCS in the country plan for the kind of future we want to see. One in which our farmland and ranch land resources are protected and continually providing the public benefit we depend on,” Crosby said. “Environmental protection, open space, wildlife habitat, and a stable food supply just to name a few. It shows how important it is to take steps now as soon as possible to protect farmland and ranch land.”
NRCS works to permanently protect farms and ranches with voluntary agricultural land easements as part of its agricultural conservation easement program. This is done in partnership with public and private entities and landowners. During the history of the program, they’ve placed 5,334 easements on nearly 1.7 million acres, and an additional 516 easements covering another 435,000 acres going through the process.
“We’re on our way to go with 2 million acres of farm or ranch land permanently protected,” Crosby said.
NRCS has worked in partnership with the Department of the Interior and Department of Defense since 2013, working with private landowners to implement sustainable management practices around military testing and training areas.
“These efforts have preserved wildlife habitat, most agricultural and forest production and reduce land use conflict around military bases,” Crosby said. “Given this report’s findings, and the potential or seven or 18, or even 24 million acres of agricultural land to be converted by 2040 these programs and partnerships will remain the key to the success.”
From the ambassador
Tom has been working to help Ukrainian farmers prior to and during the Russian invasion. Areas like these and others around the globe have been suffering from food insecurity because of the lack of land, resources and ability to produce food.
“Global food security is actually past a tipping point and now nearly 350 million people are facing some level of food insecurity and another 45 million are on the brink of famine,” he said.
The most immediate example of this is what’s happening in Ukraine. The lack of food or access to food causes people to migrate, and that creates even large problems with human trafficking and the illicit drug trade. And worse yet, Tom said, joining terrorist organizations.
“This is a threat to our national security, and that of our allies and friends,” he said. “We can add climate change the lack of adoption to modern innovations such as biotech, flawed public policy, such as the EU’s Green Deal Farm to Fork initiative which will lower productivity nearly 20% and increase food costs by nearly 90%.”
According to Tom, the EU policy is an indulgence of the rich, is scientifically indefensible, and is morally indefensible. Now is the time to look at resources in the U.S.—most importantly farmland—and make sure it’s protected.
Smart Growth America
Burgess believes the AFT report is a great resource for any advocate for agriculture. In her position at Smart Growth America, she see’s the importance of farm and ranch lands.
“Our North Star is a country where no matter who you are or where you live, you can enjoy living in a neighborhood which is healthy, prosperous and resilient,” she said. “A lot of the ingredients to that puzzle are walkable development, mixed youth development, mixed income development, affordable housing and transit, and complete streets.”
When thinking about smart growth at SGA, they look at neighborhood scale and regional growth.
Burgess was excited to see the three development scenarios in the report take into account the housing need and housing supply crisis in the U.S., as well as looking at some of the different extreme weather and climate change outcomes, because they will change development patterns.
“Looking at how sea level rise and extreme weather will both impact agricultural practices and will impact our cities and the development of housing and the preparedness of housing for peak weather events,” she said.
There’s a lot more work to be done though.
“But there is still much more advocacy work to be done to ensure that new housing is built in locations which is supported by transit, and which will contribute to this regional planning pattern that we are all advocating for,” she said.
For more information about the report visit https://farmland.org/project/farms-under-threat/.
Kylene Scott can be reached at 620-227-1804 or [email protected].
