Cognitive Miscalculation
Farmland Loss
Urban Islands
By Stephen L. Wilmeth
The longer
we live the more we must recognize that immaturity of society is beyond
pervasive.
It is a
good thing that productive people still exist, or the secular behemoth dominating
the breathable air would sink us all. There are too many people who now have
zero substantive contact with the world beyond the city limit signs. Their
perspective of our world is trammeled with agendized logos from the
conservation cartels, biweekly lawsuits updates by the swamp rats, and
catfights from societal crap games like The
View.
Farmland Loss
Recent
studies have given us a totally new perspective of the magnitude of the loss of
our nation’s farmland. In terms of how far the mark has been missed - it is in the 2.5X
range. No, that isn’t the lowest magnification of an old Bill Weaver variable
scope made in 1962 in El Paso. It is the multiple of the underestimated losses
of our most precious resource.
It is now
believed that in the years between 1992 and 2012, some 31,000,000 acres were
lost in the United States.
That is
millions as in more millions of acres of farmland than most states even have. For
example, that is more acres of farmland than the leading corn producing state,
Iowa, even has.
Since Iowa
has been brought up, let’s expand. That state provides a best example of what
farmland contributes in terms of a greater multiplier effect. The magnitude of
its primary production fuels the fifth largest cattle feeding component of the
beef industry, the highest number of laying hens, and the largest pork
production among all the states. It is a dynamo of agricultural production and the
loss of such a valuable resource is inconceivable, but so is the loss across
the many states.
Urban
sprawl is the primary culprit consuming 59% of the lost acreage, but where the
development and expansion is concentrated must also be considered. Fully, 62%
of America’s development is taking place on farmland.
That may be
expected and understandable in the East where private lands dominate the
landscape and towns grew up amidst farmlands, but the fact that farmlands are
taking the hit in the West takes on a different hue.
Cognitive Miscalculation
A worst
case example of farmland loss is the Rio Grande Valley of New Mexico.
Bernalillo County, the most
populated county in the state, is the starting place for illustration. A flyover or a Google Earth search are the best
visual explanations. Farms, which once stretched from one side of the river alluvium
to the other, are essentially gone. In their wake is residential and commercial
sprawl. There are many consequences not the least of which is the alteration of
organic substructure to asphalt and concrete.
The same
thing is occurring at an accelerating rate in the southern end of the state in
Dona Ana County. The Valley there, referred to as the Mesilla Valley, shares
the same meandering water source, the Rio Grande, as the northern comparison
only the stream is further depleted from constant and increasing draw from
urban demands (The agriculture rights to the water do not and have not changed
in years. Those “rights” remain finite, subscribed, and enforced while urban
demands have no parallel prior right. Stepwise increased usage comes solely from
industry and residential demands).
The same
overflight will yield a similar albeit slower trend in conversion of arable
lands to asphalt and concrete. Factors slowing the rate of conversion in the
south have included the economy of the last ten years which saw the crash of
the real estate market and the higher value crops that can be grown in that
part of the state and provide more incentive to remain in farming.
To the
astute, however, another indicator of future losses is in play. The premise of
this morning’s discussion, the loss of the nation’s farmland study, illustrates
the second largest factor in the demise of our farmland, and that is the
parceling of land. Subdividing lands into one to 20 acre parcels by progressive
zoning regulations has now constitutes 41% of the farmland loss. This process
effectively reduces efficiencies of scale rendering land to equipment ratios
uneconomic, hastens the retirement of land when nouveau farmers get tired of
backyard pursuits, and isolates land from water sources all-the-while driving
the cost of reacquisition for productive uses out of reach.
Dona Ana leadership continues to be
a champion of parceling small acres for sale on the misguided assumption they
are preserving open space. They have done their part to set the stage for a
Bernalillo type inundation.
Young
producers are not welcome into such urban influenced environs.
Urban Islands
The most
glaring influence of farmland reduction are the stark lines between the river corridor
and the immense, undeveloped areas away from the valley. Those, of course, are the lands belonging to
the American version of the Crown, the federal government. They are off limits
to any expanded intrusion.
In Dona Ana
County, private ownership of land equates to less than one acre in nine. The
consequence is no pressure relief from the asphalt and concrete assault on private
lands including the extremely productive and important irrigated farmland base.
Urban growth into the mesquite and creosote lands away from the valley is
verboten. It is being reserved by and for a secular, urban mob that has a
diminishing relationship with any vested natural resource responsibility.
As such,
the model in New Mexico is being cast in salt. Its future is one of expanding
urban complexes amidst a backdrop of undeveloped and wild federal and trust land.
Perhaps the better description has a somewhat parallel ring associated with an
aged, environmental catch phrase. In this case, the suggestion should be Urban Islands.
Perhaps it
is also time to change the state’s motto from Land of Enchantment to Land
of Urban Islands.
Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New
Mexico. “Realize we are of the unequal states status.”
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