1 / 17

HOW TO KEEP LAND IN AGRICULTURE If That’s Your Goal

HOW TO KEEP LAND IN AGRICULTURE If That’s Your Goal. Lawrence W. Libby C. William Swank Professor of Rural-Urban Policy The Ohio State University. THE ALABAMA PICTURE. Land use change Policy. State. Why Keep Land in Farms?. Not trivial – has to be a case

phuc
Download Presentation

HOW TO KEEP LAND IN AGRICULTURE If That’s Your Goal

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. HOW TO KEEP LAND IN AGRICULTUREIf That’s Your Goal Lawrence W. Libby C. William Swank Professor of Rural-Urban Policy The Ohio State University

  2. THE ALABAMA PICTURE Land use change Policy

  3. State

  4. Why Keep Land in Farms? • Not trivial – has to be a case • Not food scarcity, but long term food security • Economic importance of agriculture, high secondary economic impacts • Avoid fragmentation of farmland • Avoid linear development – costs more

  5. More on the Why • Agriculture and character of rural Alabama • Ecological services – groundwater recharge, nutrient recycle • Amenity services – landscape, habitat

  6. Current Policy in Alabama • Deferred tax on farmland • Right to farm • Planning effort for Farmland Protection Program under 2002 Farm Bill • Private land trusts • Conservation easement enabling law (97), includes ag, 30 years is default or change in ownership

  7. HOW TO KEEP LAND IN FARMS • State policy position on farmland retention • Can acknowledge, support local action • Try a Governor’s Farmland Commission • Broadly representative • Land use changes, pressures • Unintended impacts of existing law • What makes sense for Alabama?

  8. HOW -- continued • County or other local action • Farmland committees to describe present, chart future, eg. Population change in rural areas • Establish network of county farmland committees, informed constituency

  9. How – Policy Change • Incentive-based, keep land in farms • Enable purchase of farmland easements • Scoring system will reflect priorities • Appraisal • Land-Link program to help young farmers • Try “transfer of development rights” • Development right mitigation area • Higher density in return for open land • Cultivate urban interest in farms • Farmers markets, agri-tourism, compost, access for hunting, etc.

  10. CONCLUSIONS • Urban people value farms and farmland, need to be reminded • Find ways for farmer to capture these additional benefits • Local action, with state level endorsement • Policy change is incremental, don’t expect or seek big changes • Only acceptable policy is good policy in Alabama

  11. Larry Libby C. William Swank Professor of Rural-Urban Policy The Ohio State University 614-688-4907 (P) 614-688-3622 (F) Libby.7@osu.edu http://aede.osu.edu/programs/Swank/

More Related