Central Valley's Shrinking Farm Land Raises Biodiverstiy Council's Concern
Managing Fire and Protecting Air Quality Also Get Attention

The Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys are ranked No. 1 among the nation's top 20 most threatened agricultural areas. Steady loss of rich farm land to development is a matter of increasing concern.

In California's great Central Valley, where agriculture dominates the landscape, conservation of farmland is on a collision course with a steadily growing population demanding housing, goods, and services.

Loss of agricultural lands is a major concern in the Central Valley, a 450-mile long checkerboard of highly productive farmland that stretches from Redding to Bakersfield and supplies the bulk of California's $22.1 billion agricultural output.

In fact, the American Farmland Trust (AFT), a national farmland conservation group, recently ranked the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys No.1 among the top 20 most threatened agricultural areas in the country. In 1995, the AFT reported that current growth patterns will cost the Central Valley 1 million acres of farmland and $49 billion in agricultural sales by the year 2040.

Acre-by-acre, Central Valley farmland is being converted for urban uses -- housing, schools, commercial facilities, and infrastructure -- as population growth shifts from the coast to inland valleys where land is plentiful and cheaper.

This trend raises concern that the Central Valley will repeat the pattern of farmland conversion that occurred after World War II in the Los Angeles basin when rapid urbanization gobbled up fields and orchards in what was California's top crop-producing county.

As evidenced in Los Angeles and elsewhere, farmland conversion not only reduces the amount of food grown in California, but also destroys valuable wildlife habitat. Moreover, conversion usually is permanent, for once built upon, farmland is gone.

California's Secretary for Resources Doug Wheeler, chair of the California Biodiversity Council, says loss of agricultural lands is among the state's most foreboding problems.

"California has no need more crucial than to conserve farmland," Wheeler said. "Loss of agricultural lands to development and other uses threatens the entire farming industry and the production of food to sustain us."

Growth and Biodiversity
To address these issues, the California Biodiversity Council visited the San Joaquin Valley for its spring meeting in Visalia March 20 and sponsored a Local Biodiversity Forum in Tulare March 19.

Michael Chrisman Conserving the biodiversity has become a challenge ...

The topic of both days was the inextricable linkage between San Joaquin Valley farmland and the Sierra Nevada, where two-thirds of California's water supply originates. The Council explored the impacts of farmland conversion, the worsening air pollution, and ways to improve the quality of life in valley communities.

In an overview, Michael Chrisman, a Visalia rancher, public utility manager, former undersecretary of the state Department of Food and Agriculture, and current member of the California Fish and Game Commission, described the linkage between the valley and the Sierra in water use and supply, air quality, and effects of growth on biodiversity.

"Conserving the biodiversity of this area has become a challenge for all of us as land uses and vegetation types change," Chrisman said. "More people will mean greater demands on the available natural resources.

"Why be concerned about biodiversity? It's fairly clear that the success of human communities in this region is critically linked to the richness and diversity of natural resources available," he said.

Mayor Mary Louise Vivier, right, makes her point during the Local Biodiversity Forum poster session with Arthur Unger of the Kern Kaweah Chapter of the Sierra Club.

The two-day gathering generated wide-ranging discussion among the Council and local leaders, natural resources managers, land-use planners, farmers, ranchers, conservationists, and others in the San Joaquin Valley and southern Sierra bioregions, which encompass 10 counties: Fresno, Kern, Kings, Madera, Mariposa, Merced, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Tulare, and Tuolumne.

Tulare County Supervisor Bill Maze, the Council's local government representative for the bioregion, welcomed more than 130 people to the Forum, at which panelists from agriculture, resource management and planning, conservation, and local government discussed population growth, conserving biodiversity, managing fire, and protecting air quality. Afterward, everyone exchanged ideas at "breakout" sessions.

Undersecretary for Resources Michael Mantell, right, tells the Biodiversity Council that forward-looking planning can help balance growth and protection of natural resources. At left are Ed Hastey, state director of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, and Supervisor Nancy Huffman of Modoc County.

The Council will follow up on information gleaned from the San Joaquin Valley sessions at its summer meeting in Roseville and in meetings with regional managers. Likewise, issues and ideas raised locally at future Council meetings and forums in the bioregions will be pursued at subsequent meetings.

Balancing Land Uses
Agriculture in California employs about 10 percent of the working population and produces more than 250 crops, including 55 percent of the nation's fruits, nuts and vegetables and 100 percent of some crops, such as olives, almonds, dates, raisins, and artichokes.

The American Farmland Trust says irrigated farmland accounts for roughly 6 million acres in the San Joaquin Valley -- about 6 percent of California's entire land mass.

As California's growing population, now 32.6 million, pushes into the hinterlands, farmland is shrinking. Chrisman told the Council that the 5.5 million population of the nine-county San Joaquin Valley is expected to nearly triple in the next 30 or 40 years to about 15 million.

Planning consultant Rudy Platzek, a panelist at the Forum, said that at the current rate of growth, about one-third of the farmland in the valley will have been developed by the year 2040, creating "one of the world's longest linear megacities from Marysville to Bakersfield."

The California Department of Conservation's current farmland inventory shows that from 1994-1996, Fresno, Merced, and Madera counties lost nearly 7,000 acres of farmland, following a loss of just under 6,300 acres from 1992-1994.

"This is a critical decade," Undersecretary for Resources Michael Mantell said at the Council meeting.

"Enormous challenges and opportunities are facing the San Joaquin Valley, and there are many choices to be made that will determine the quality of life. Fast growth in the region is a reason for great concern, but with forward-looking, sensible planning, this growth can be balanced with protection of the natural resources that will sustain both environmental and economic needs."

Mantell suggested that the Council help Valley communities explore options by working with local governments and willing landowners on projects that demonstrate more visionary land-use planning.

In a discussion, Council members suggested seeking opportunities to connect fragmented habitat, such as through conservation management incentives rather than changing ownership of the land.

Fear of Endangered Species
Some farmers participating in the Forum said growers fear discovery of endangered species on their land could trigger environmental prohibitions against farming. Ceil Howe, president of his family's Westlake Farms in Kings County, said the potential loss of land use can discourage farmers from enhancing biodiversity.

"If you have a bare piece of land, you plow it so no endangered species will appear and remove the land from use," Howe said. "That's a problem all agriculture fears. It's so Draconian. There's no relief, so you just go out and prevent it from happening."

Dennis Tristao of the J.G. Boswell Company, one of California's largest farming operations, said endangered species jeopardize farming operations without compensation by depriving farmers of the ability to grow crops on their land.

"We have enough trouble working with nature, let alone having government in the equation," Tristao said. "We must eliminate the penalty for having habitat on your land."

In fact, there are some programs that offer relief, but they aren't easily available and may be impractical for individual farmers. Federal "take" permits, most frequently sought by developers, allow harming of endangered species to carry out approved land uses, but they involve a regulatory process that can be lengthy and costly. Habitat conservation plans, required under federal incidental take permits, may involve providing suitable habitat to offset potential harm caused by economic use.

Rhonda Reed of the California Department of Fish and Game in Fresno, a panelist at the Forum, said communities are including open space and wildlife habitat in planning for rapid growth in the valley. But, she noted, large-scale habitat conservation plans are not easy to create.

"It's a process of continual communication," Reed said.

A proposed pilot program called "safe harbor" is designed to encourage farmers to preserve habitat and to provide regulatory relief, but has run into legal obstacles.

Conservation Incentives
Various programs offer incentives to conserve farmland, irrespective of endangered species. The state's Williamson Act provides tax incentives to landowners who agree to keep their land in agricultural or open space use under rolling 10-year contracts.

In 1993, Governor Wilson's Council on Growth Management recommended creating incentives to encourage the viability of agriculture and greater efficiency when conversion must occur. In 1995, the Governor signed into law the Agricultural Land Stewardship Program , which provides grants to purchase farmland conservation easements (see related story on farmland preservation grants, page 9).

But since local government and landowners decide how land will be used, state laws and programs alone cannot preserve the farmland.

"Solutions will be locally based and locally driven," said Chrisman. Farmers, ranchers, and business community leaders recognize that growth is inevitable and are seeking ways to balance the demands for economic stability and resource protection, he said.

Economic incentives are essential, particularly if preservation would involve financial sacrifice. Conservation easements, in which landowners are paid to retain land as habitat, keep land on the tax rolls.

Kern County Planning Director Ted James, a leader in innovative approaches to habitat protection and economic sustainability, believes incentives are more effective than the traditional "command and control" regulatory approach.

"We must get out of this negative prohibition concept of enforcing the Endangered Species Act. It's the wrong way to go," James told the Council. "We need long-range programs that provide certainty and indicate what the benefits will be. Local programs are more responsive to the people affected."

James has helped to implement conservation incentives in Kern County with the Metropolitan Bakersfield Habitat Conservation Plan, one of California's earliest and most successful habitat conservation plans, encompassing more than 261,000 acres of mostly privately owned land. He is working on the 3,000 square-mile Kern County Valley Floor Habitat Conservation Plan, which will offer market-based credits that participating landowners can sell to others who need to mitigate for development. Credits make it profitable to conserve habitat.

Quality of Life
As development occurs, however, careful planning for the use of space and attention to the quality of life can reduce the impact on farmland and air quality.

Visalia Mayor Mary Louise Vivier, speaking at the Forum, said cities need to establish and respect boundaries for urbanization.

"There's pressure all the time to develop outside the growth boundaries," she said.

Development should take advantage of existing zoning, rather than converting open land unnecessarily, Vivier said.

John Hopkins, president of the Institute for Ecological Health at Davis, said communities are designed in ways that waste space and require motor vehicle transportation, rather than walking or bicycling.

"We're taking up too much more space per person than we used to, and we're building communities that you have to drive everywhere to get around in, which increases pollution," Hopkins said.

Developers are attracted to the cheaper land beyond the city lights, which creates sprawl, he said.

"We need to create regulatory and fiscal incentives to do the right thing and disincentives to do the wrong thing," Hopkins said. "The vision has to change at the local, state, and federal levels."

Joanie Weber, Fresno representative of the Institute for Ecological Health, said density need not deprive people of a high quality of life, and can even enhance it.

Strategic use of shade trees, open space, bicycle paths, and common gathering areas can help provide comfort, convenience, and a sense of belonging to a community, panelists said.

Smoke, Fire, and Air Pollution
In the San Joaquin Valley and southern Sierra foothills, as elsewhere in California, managing fire is an annual affair that comes with the drying of the vegetation and inevitable igniting of tinder-dry trees and brush, whether accidentally, deliberately, or by lightning.

"Wildfire and smoke have been part of California since before our ancestors, and are part of shaping the ecosystem," said Gary Gilbert, chief of the southern Sierra region of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CDF).

CDF and the U.S. Forest Service fight forest fires, but also conduct prescribed burning to rid the landscape of dangerously thick vegetation fuel buildup that can cause catastrophic fire. However, smoke from prescribed fires, as well as wildfires, pollutes the air in the valley and the Sierra, and can be irritating and annoying for human health and aesthetics.

Pete van Gilluwe, a businessman from the foothills community of Three Rivers, just outside Sequoia National Park, complained that some fires burn for weeks, causing smokey air and obscuring the view of the mountains that people go there to see.

"We're upset about the impacts on health, tourism and business," van Gilluwe said.

The agencies are seeking practical ways to develop more healthful, less polluting fuels reduction methods, including biomass, thinning, fuel breaks, and improved prescribed burning that minimizes smoke.