Protecting Our Working Landscape in the Face of Development Pressures

By Paul Hubbard, Land Link Montana

February 7, 2008

Western Montana is growing fast. As people flood into our mountain valleys, our most fertile soils are sprouting houses, parking lots, and strip malls to accommodate the increasing population. This growth has obvious impacts to agriculture. Our best soils are located along the valley floors, and they are being lost, subdivision by subdivision, lot by lot.

But go to one of western Montana’s farmers’ markets on a sunny day in June, and it would appear that agriculture is alive and well, reaping the benefits of the increasing number of mouths to feed. Indeed, the swelling population coupled with a growing demand for food-with-a-face poses significant economic opportunities for the region’s farms and ranches. The number of farmers’ markets in Montana, for example, has grown from 5 in 1990 to over 30 today. And several market-based programs are bringing a range of Montana’s products into our restaurants, schools and universities.

Still, only 15% of the $3 billion that Montanans spend each year on food goes to Montana-produced goods. If every family spent just 10 bucks a week more on local food, we would re-direct $186 million to Montana’s farms, ranches and communities.

But we can’t stop there. If we hope to keep farmers and ranchers in our communities, then we urgently need to protect the working landscape … which brings us back to population growth.

Take Missoula County. Between 1960 and 2000, Missoula County’s population increased 114%. In roughly the same timeframe, the acres in agricultural production decreased by 34%. This is a familiar story across western Montana, as farms and ranches are subdivided and paved over.

But it’s not just any type of growth that spells doom for our farms and ranches. The real culprit is residential sprawl. In the last 38 years, the amount of residential land per person has doubled in Missoula County. Simply put, our towns and cities are creeping outward, consuming more acres per residence, and often building right on top of the most fertile soil. This development pattern furthers our dependency on other states and countries to produce our food, and on cheap oil to get it here at a reasonable cost.

Luckily, we have local governments and planning departments, as places for citizens to gather and design a community’s future. And believe it or not, there are many ways for each community to plan for population growth and agriculture to coexist. That starts with us, citizens, taking a stake in our county and municipal planning processes. It means speaking out against sprawling subdivisions and speaking up for developments that use the land efficiently within our existing community services. Most importantly, it means creating policies that value agricultural land as a finite and vital resource.

As we protect agricultural soils, we also need to ensure that the next generation of farmers and ranchers can access these lands, which carry increasingly steep price tags per acre. Many producers are hard pressed to find affordable agricultural land.

Jacob Cowgill, for example, a 30 year-old native of Sand Coulee, Montana, works for farmer-researcher Bob Quinn in Big Sandy, where he grows dry-land vegetables. Yes, Jacob is actually getting decent yields of potatoes, onions, squash and corn without irrigation. But as Jacob looks for land to start his own farm, finding affordable farmland is his biggest barrier.

CFAC, the Community Food and Agriculture Coalition, is launching a program called Land Link Montana to help Jacob and other farmers and ranchers connect with landowners who want their land to be in production. Land Link Montana will also provide resources and technical assistance, as landowners and producers establish a business arrangement.

If you are a farmer or rancher who is looking for agricultural land, or a landowner who would like to sell or lease your land to a producer, Land Link Montana would like to work with you. For more information about Land Link Montana or CFAC please visit us at http://www.umt.edu/cfa/or call us at 406-543-0542.

It is urgent that we simultaneously protect our best agricultural soils, ensure that producers can access that farmland, and expand markets to re-build a local food economy. From all of us good citizens, that requires both thoughtful consumption as well as an increased engagement in our community’s planning activities.

I’m Paul Hubbard for the Alternative Energy Resources Organization. AERO welcomes your comments and perspectives. AERO is a grassroots membership organization working to help create farm, food, and energy solutions for communities throughout Montana. For more information about our programs call us in Helena at 406-443-7272.