2003 Essay Contest

Protecting Our Farm and Ranch Land

Kerr Center for Sustainable Agriculture 2003 Essay Contest Winners Named

Protecting Our Farm and Ranch Land

By: Jillianne Leigh Zweiacker
Pawnee High School B Pawnee, OK
1st Place Essay Contest Winner B 2003

Imagine, if you would for a moment, that the year is 2060. Your surroundings are very different. No longer are you surrounded by beautiful trees and colorful flowers. Instead, concrete skyscrapers overshadow you, and the air is cloudy and hazy from factories and car exhaust. People do not like to be outdoors. Going outside means putting on an oxygen mask to filter the air because it is so polluted. There are not any animals to observe or plants to enjoy. Food is not fresh but chemically engineered. There are no farms to produce food. In fact, grass is a rarity. Everything is concrete. Society has become dependent on technology, and farming and ranching is a thing of the past. Now, let=s come back to the year 2003. There are still trees, flowers, animals, and fresh food present, but the importance of agriculture is being overlooked. Farmers are selling their land for urban development because they cannot make enough money to live sufficiently. The importance of conserving and protecting our farm and ranch land is continually pushed to the bottom of our priority list; and unless we act now, our future will be similar to the scene described above. We must act now while the fate of our future rests in our hands.

According to a study by the American Farmland Trust, AAmerica loses two acres of farmland every single minute of every single day@ (www.kerrcenter.com). In five years a land area the size of the state of Maryland could be developed. That is six million acres of land that is no longer available for agricultural purposes. Oklahoma alone lost 63,300 acres of farmland between the years 1992-1997. At this rate, Oklahoma loses 12,660 acres per year, 35 acres per day or 1.5 acres per hour. This is the cause of alarm for many conservationists throughout Oklahoma and across our nation. More people are moving into urban areas, and towns are beginning to modernize and expand. All of this leads to one thing: more land is needed to develop. Usually this land is farmland. Farmland is the optimal choice for building. The land is more level, which allows for easy access and the soil is better. These factors make building less expensive and easier. The urgency for urban development has increased with our society becoming so technologically centered. Farming and ranching have been put on hold. We do not have much farm land as it is and now most of it is being industrialized. To fully understand how little land we have for agricultural purposes, let's pretend the earth is an apple. One half of the apple represents all the oceans on our planet. That leaves us with half of an apple. Half of that apple represents mountains and deserts, which is land unsuited for farming. We have only one fourth of the apple left. Half of that piece is swamps, marshes, and lakes. This leaves us with one eighth of all the land on Earth suitable for farming. There is not much land available for agricultural purposes. If we begin to take every acre of this land and develop it into urban areas, how will we grow our food and how will we survive? (www.kerrcenter.com)

This is the reason why we must act now. We must begin to protect our farm and ranch lands, especially in Oklahoma. If we lose our farm and ranch lands, we not only lose our way to life and the ability to feed ourselves, but we lose our heritage. The best way to ensure that farmland remains available for agricultural purposes is through conservation easements. A conservation easement is a Alegally recorded, voluntary agreement that limits land to specific uses. Easements may apply to entire parcels of land or to specific parts of the property. Land protected by conservation easements remains on the tax rolls and is privately owned and managed@ (www.farmlandinfo.org). Placing a conservation easement on farm or ranch land will ensure that land will be permanently protected from development and kept available for agriculture. Landowners do not lose their property rights when land is placed under a conservation easement. They still hold the title to their property and enjoy all the rights of ownership such as the right to lease or sell property, leave it to heirs, the right of privacy, and others. Future owners are bound to the easement, making it impossible to terminate the easement. Easements do not affect borrowing, raise local property taxes, or affect local municipal by-laws or zoning regulations. Conservation easements do not lower the property value. Easements ensure that farm and ranch land will stay farm or ranch land for all future generations (www.farmland.org).

The Oklahoma legislature has already enacted a conservation easement bill to help curb the dangerous losses of farmland. The Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002, or the Farm Bill, reauthorized the Farmland Protection Program (FPP) to protect agricultural land from conversion to non-agricultural uses. The FPP is a voluntary program that helps farmers and ranchers keep their land in agriculture. The program provides matching funds to State, Tribal or local governments and non-governmental programs to purchase conservation easements or other land interests. This program will allow farmers to keep farmland for agricultural purposes while receiving the same amount of money they would have been given by construction companies. The FPP gives farmers and ranchers an alternative to selling their land for development. Oklahoma has already suffered large amounts of agricultural land loss, but we can present a total loss of land if we begin our work now. Conservation easements are the best way to do this. Land under an easement will be forever devoted to agricultural purposes (www.usda.gov).

Putting our farm and ranch lands under conservation easements will ensure an agricultural life for future generations. Instead of inventing new ways to produce food or adapting farming to deserts or mountains, people of future generations will be able to farm on the soil that is the most ideal for food production. Keeping the same land for farm or ranch land will be the most economical. Easements will ensure that farmland will be available in the future, and this ensures that there will also be plenty of food.

The soils of our farm and ranch land take thousands of years to develop. So far, no one has found a way to manufacture them. Therefore, productive agricultural land is one of our most important natural resources, as well as an irreplaceable one. The need to protect our farm and ranch land is higher than ever, and it increases every day. We must act now. We must begin to preserve our precious farm and ranch lands. We need to look at alternatives to selling out our farmland for urban development. We are the future. What we decide to do with our agricultural lands now may decide the fate of future generations. What do you want for the future?

Works Cited

American Farmland Trust: Farm Legacy Program.@ h.pag.on-line. Internet. March 4, 2003. Available http://www.farmland.org/farmlegacy/index.htm.

American Farmland Trust Farm Legacy Program: About Easements.@ h.pag.on-line. Internet. March 4, 2003. Available http://www.farmland.org/farmlegacy/easements.htm.

Conservation Easement.@ (June 6, 2001): h.pag.on-line. Internet. March 4, 2003.
Available http://www.farmlandinfo.org/fic/laws/kwce.htm.

Farm Bill 2002 Farmland Protection Program Description..@ (May 2002): h.pag.on-line. Internet. March 4, 2003. Available http://www.usda.gov/farmbill.

Farm Bill 2002 Farmland Protection Program Fact Sheet.@ (May 2002): h.pag.on-line. Internet. March 4, 2003. Available http://www.usda.gov/farmbill.

Farm Bill 2002 Farmland Protection Program Key Points.@ (May 2002): h.pag.on-line. Internet. March 4, 2003. Available http://www.usda.gov/farmbill.

Farm Bill 2002 Farmland Protection Program Questions and Answers.@ (May 2002):
h.pag.on-line. Internet. March 4, 2003. Available http://www.usda.gov/farmbill.

Farmland Information Center B Technical Assistance Glossary.@ (September 1998):
h.pag.on-line. Internet. March 4, 2003.
Available http://www.farmlandinfo.org/fic/tas/tafs-gloss.htm.

Kerr Center for Sustainable Agriculture - Essay Contest.@ H.pag.on-line. Internet. February 13, 2003. Available http://www.kerrcenter.com/kerrweb/HTML/essay_info.html.

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