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- Info
Plowing the urban fringe: An assessment of alternative approaches to farmland preservation
| Author: |
Hiemestra, Hal; Bushwick, Nancy, eds |
| Date: |
1989 |
| Periodical: |
Monograph #88-2. Fort Lauderdale, FL: Florida Atlantic University/ Florida International University Joint Center for Environmental and Urban Problems |
| Abstract: |
This book culminates eight years of research and public information activities on farmland protection programs. The Florida Atlantic University/Florida International University Joint Center for Environmental and Urban Problems established its agricultural lands project in 1980 when it cosponsored, with the American Assembly, a Southeast Regional American Assembly on "The Farm and the City." Later, in 1982, the Joint Center sponsored a similar conference--the FAU/FIU Farmland Assembly-to consider agricultural land use in Florida. From the latter a video tape was developed, "Florida's Farmlands: What Have We Got To Lose?," which has been shown to many audiences around Florida. In both assemblies, public debate was encouraged on controversial issues related to farmland conversion and farmland protection programs. Participants were drawn from around the United States and included farmers, developers, environmentalists, planners, elected officials, and others with special knowledge about agriculture and land use. The Joint Center's research on farmland protection was designed to provide background information for participants in its assemblies. Conclusions about farmland conversion issues have thus been tempered both by research and by intense public discourse involving diverse interests. Arguments for and against efforts to preserve agricultural land from urban conversion have been subjected to careful inquiry, and data on agricultural land-use have been analyzed critically to assess the nature and extent of the farmland conversion problem. After it all, the Center has concluded that urban conversion of agricultural lands, while not posing an immediate threat to America's food supply or its strategic position in international affairs, does warrant concern on other grounds. Certainly, other things equal, it makes little sense for a society Jo shift agriculture from better to worse lands if planning and management would allow more efficient uses of land resources. Nor is it prudent to convert agricultural land to urban uses if the urban development in question is itself wasteful and socially expensive. The challenge is to develop farmland protection programs that distinguish inefficient from efficient land uses and promote objectives more complicated than simply indiscriminately saving all agricultural land. The present study evaluates agricultural land protection programs as land management tools that can serve multiple objectives. Although their immediate objective is to keep lands in agricultural use, farmland protection programs can also be used to eliminate speculation on land; protect family farming; reduce agricultural intrusion into wetlands; and encourage compact, centralized, and contiguous urban development. Because programmatic objectives vary across states and locales as a function of local conditions and community preferences, citizens and units of government wanting to develop farmland protection programs need to know the specific impacts of different approaches and combinations of approaches in different contexts. This book is divided into nine chapters. The first chapter provides an analysis of farmland conversion issues and techniques. The following chapters present case studies of farmland protection programs around the United States. Each case study chapter concludes with an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of each farmland protection approach. |
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