Government Main Cause of Threatened Farmland

January 17, 2000

The Reason Public Policy Institute says government more than sprawl is threatening farmland. "Numerous governmental policies contribute to the inefficient transition of farmland," says the study.

"Farmland loss rates have moderated significantly over the past several decades," the report says. "Only approximately 5.4% of U.S. land was developed by 1997." Rhetoric about vanishing farmland may be overstated, the report continued, but "the concern over farmland loss should be recognized" nonetheless.

Most "lost" farmland has not been developed, the study says, but converted to other "quality of life" uses such as parks, recreational land, pastureland and forests. Of the total decline in cropland between 1949 and 1992, less than 25% can be attributed to urbanization. The rest was brought on by changes in farming population and income, the study says.

The author of the report, Samuel Staley, says some of the policies that should be repealed include:

--Estate taxes which can prevent farming families from keeping land after the death of a parent;

--Targeted business-specific subsidies and tax incentive programs that distort market prices;

--One-size-fits-all zoning rules that discourage flexible development and increase the pressure to develop outward, often at the expense of farmland.

He recommends that privatizing infrastructure and incorporating full-cost pricing for new infrastructure would ensure that all developments pay a fair share of costs, and encouraging the creation of private land trust and conservation easements would help preserve open space and farmland without intrusive restrictions on property rights."

Reason Public Policy Institute is located in Los Angeles and is a nonprofit research and education organization that conducts academic, peer-reviewed research in land use and economic development, environmental policy, transportation, privatization and government reform, education and social policy.

The report is available on the Internet at http://www.rppi.org/pb12central.html.