Idaho Ag Looking At Address Land Lost To Urban Sprawl

It may be a slow process, but one that has many in the farming community concerned; the loss of farmland due to urban sprawl. According to the American Farmland Trust, between 2001-2016 eleven million acres of farmland was removed from production nationwide. That comes out to roughly 2,000 acres per day.

Discussions have already started in Idaho about what can be done to keep land in production. Sean Ellis with the Idaho Farm Bureau Federation said the issue is a tricky one, because of property rights, and the deeply rooted philosophy that farmers can do with their land as they see fit. Ellis noted one of the ideas that’s starting to gain some traction, the creation of Agricultural Conservation Easements which would permanently protect the ground as farmland.

“What you do is you offer the farmer a certain amount of money to put his farmland in a Agricultural Conservation Easement, and he gets an incentive to do that, and the land remains farmland forever.  The problem is, that obviously has to involve a lot of money, and the farmer has to be offered something at least in the neighborhood of what a developer is going to offer them.  So where does that money come from?"

Ellis added between 2001-2016, Idaho lost nearly 69,000 acres of farmland, so it’s an issue that needs to be addressed.

“And the reason it’s so important in the Treasure Valley area is agriculture is the #1 part of Idaho’s economy and responsible for one in every eight jobs in Idaho and 13% of the state’s total Gross Domestic Product.  So, farming is very important to the state.”

Areas that saw the greatest loss of farmland includes Boise, Twin Falls, Idaho Falls and Coeur D’Alene.

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