[Senate Hearing 106-947]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 106-947
FARMLAND PROTECTION PROGRAM
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON FORESTRY,
CONSERVATION, AND RURAL REVITALIZATION,
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE,
NUTRITION, AND FORESTRY
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
ON
FARMLAND PROTECTION PROGRAM
__________
SEPTEMBER 18, 2000
__________
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
71-375 WASHINGTON : 2001
_______________________________________________________________________
For sale by the U.S. Government Printing Office
Superintendent of Documents, Congressional Sales Office, Washington, DC
20402
COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, NUTRITION, AND FORESTRY
RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana, Chairman
JESSE HELMS, North Carolina TOM HARKIN, Iowa
THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont
MITCH McCONNELL, Kentucky KENT CONRAD, North Dakota
PAT ROBERTS, Kansas THOMAS A. DASCHLE, South Dakota
PETER G. FITZGERALD, Illinois MAX BAUCUS, Montana
CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa J. ROBERT KERREY, Nebraska
LARRY E. CRAIG, Idaho TIM JOHNSON, South Dakota
RICK SANTORUM, Pennsylvania BLANCHE L. LINCOLN, Arkansas
GORDON SMITH, Oregon ZELL MILLIER, Georgia
Keith Luse, Staff Director
David L. Johnson, Chief Counsel
Robert E. Sturm, Chief Clerk
Mark Halverson, Staff Director for the Minority
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing:
Monday, September 18, 2000, Farmland Protection Program.......... 1
Appendix:
Monday, September 18, 2000....................................... 39
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Monday, September 18, 2000
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY SENATORS
Craig, Hon. Larry E., a U.S. Senator from Idaho, Chairman,
Subcommittee on Forestry, Conservation, and Rural
Revitalization, of the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and
Forestry....................................................... 1
Santorum, Rick, a U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania, Ranking Member,
Subcommittee on Forestry, Conservation, and Rural
Revitalization, of the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and
Forestry....................................................... 3
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WITNESSES
PANEL I
Keene, John C., Professor, Department of City and Regional
Planning, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA......... 9
Heinricht, Mary, Regional Director for the Mid-Atlantic American
Farmland Trust, Culpeper, VA................................... 7
Sells, Danny, Associate Chief, Natural Resources Conservation
Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, DC........ 5
PANEL II
Beam, Omar, Recipient, Farmland Protection Program, Elverson, PA. 28
Bowland, Marion, Executive Director, Pennsylvania Farmlink,
Manheim, PA.................................................... 30
Bushnell, Bill, Legislative Assistant to Representative Raymond
Bunt, Jr., 147th District, Montgomery County, House of
Representatives Commonwealth of Pennsylvania................... 25
Matthews, Hon. James R., Commissioner, County of Montgomery, PA.,
Norristown, PA................................................. 23
Oertly, Janet L., Pennsylvania State Conservationist, Natural
Resources Conservation Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture,
Philadelphia, PA............................................... 26
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APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Bowlan, Marion............................................... 58
Bunt, Raymond L.............................................. 51
Heinricht, Mary.............................................. 45
Keene, John C................................................ 48
Oertly, Janet L.............................................. 53
Sells, Danny................................................. 40
FARMLAND PROTECTION PROGRAM
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MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2000
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Forestry, Conservation, and Rural
Revitalization, of the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition,
and Forestry,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:00 a.m., at
the Montgomery County Human Services Center, 1430 DeKalb
Street, Norristown, Pennsylvania, Hon. Larry E. Craig,
(Chairman of the Subcommittee,) presiding.
Present or submitting a statement: Senators Craig and
Santorum.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. LARRY E. CRAIG, A U.S. SENATOR FROM
IDAHO, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON FORESTRY, CONSERVATION, AND
RURAL REVITALIZATION, OF THE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE,
NUTRITION, AND FORESTRY
The Chairman. Good morning, everyone. The Subcommittee on
Forestry, Conservation and Rural Revitalization of the full
Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry will convene
this field hearing on farmland protection and the program
around it. Let me tell you it is a pleasure to be here in the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania this morning holding this hearing.
I say so not because this is a beautiful morning and this is a
beautiful spot. The hearings I have been holding over the last
week-and-a-half or two have been not about preservation, but
about destruction and what we do in the wake of destruction. I
am talking about the tragic fires that we have had throughout
the west and the public land forests of our country this
summer.
I chair another forestry committee on another committee,
full committee, so we are wrestling with that. So it is a
pleasure to be here and especially to be with my colleague,
Senator Rick Santorum and his staff, and let me thank them for
assisting our subcommittee in preparing this hearing. I think
all of us are increasingly recognizing the importance of
farmland protection and the program that was created in 1980. I
am from the State of Idaho and out there it has been of less
importance, but clearly today, with the urbanization in our key
agricultural areas, it grows ever-increasingly more attractive
to our State.
We created the program in 1980, requiring Federal agencies
to take a hard look at the problem. A decade later, the 1990
Farms and Future Act allowed Federal demonstration projects to
give States guaranteed loans and subsidized interest to start
to protect farmland. But, funding under this law was somewhat
intermittent. Then the 1996 Farm Bill provided $35 million for
a farmland easement acquisition program, and the program's
popularity has been such that all of those funds were depleted
by 1998, which brings us to today.
The Subcommittee wants to recognize the effort that Senator
Santorum has directed with the Senate and has clearly become
one of the Senate's champions for farmland protection. Senator
Santorum has produced legislation, S. 598, which would provide
$50 million annually for farmland conservation easements.
Moreover, S. 598 contains a mechanism to extend farmland
conservation processes to all of the States. Recently, Senator
Santorum worked very hard with myself and other Senators to
craft an emergency agricultural funding package, and he was
successful in getting an additional $10 million in additional
Federal monies into the Farmland Protection Program.
As I had mentioned, we had run out of funds and Rick was
able to get the Senate and the Congress to replenish that, as
we are working to accomplish now. Certainly, the Subcommittee
would encourage, I think, Rick to detail the efforts that he
has put forth. They are important for the record. In that
regard, I am confident that we can build an excellent record
this morning, and that is what we are about, not only to
strengthen the record, but to gain witness from Federal, State,
and local officials, academia and local farmers, so that the
Subcommittee can have a much fuller record as we head into next
year and the reauthorization of the farm bill. And this issue,
I think, will certainly be part of that overall discussion and
consideration.
Just a couple of housekeeping matters before I turn to
Senator Santorum as we open the Committee with his and my
remarks. We have asked our witnesses to stay to 5-minutes.
Their full testimony will be a part of the record. If anyone
who attends this hearing would wish to make comment following
the official witnesses, we will ask them to come forward, to
state their name for the record, and we would give them 2-
minutes to the microphone. Now, the reason we are doing this is
I have to catch a train back to Washington and get back to the
city for leadership meetings this afternoon. But I think we
have got ample time this morning to deal with this issue and to
build the record.
So, once again, let me thank all who are in attendance and
certainly those on our witness list who traveled up out of
Washington for this hearing. Before we hear our witnesses, let
me turn to the Senator from the State Pennsylvania who has been
a champion of farmland preservation, Senator Rick Santorum.
Rick.
STATEMENT OF HON. RICK SANTORUM, A U.S. SENATOR FROM
PENNSYLVANIA, RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON FORESTRY,
CONSERVATION AND RURAL REVITALIZATION, OF THE COMMITTEE ON
AGRICULTURE, NUTRITION, AND FORESTRY
Senator Santorum. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and let me thank
you, Larry, for getting up early this morning and taking the
seven o'clock Metroliner up with me this morning from
Washington to be here, and thank you for holding this hearing.
Larry is not only the Chairman of this subcommittee, but he is
also a member of the Republican leadership. He is the Chairman
of our policy committee and he works on developing policy for
the Republican caucus and has done a great job in that capacity
and has really been a fine leader in Washington, DC.. So, it is
an honor to have you here with us this morning to talk about an
issue that is very, very important, not just to Montgomery
County, but to all of Southeastern Pennsylvania, in particular,
because of the incredible growth pressure that is being seen in
our collar counties here around the city of Philadelphia and,
even more so now, some of the counties outside of those
counties, talking about Lancaster County, Berks County, Lehigh
County, Northampton County. Those counties are experiencing
rapid rates of growth, also and this sprawl that is occurring
in all of those counties, many of which are just incredibly
prime agricultural lands, the upper end of Montgomery County,
another area which is just incredibly good and strong
agricultural territory, is under tremendous development
pressure.
Having resources directed from the Federal Government, I
think, sends the right signal to support the efforts of the
counties here in this region of the State, and obviously the
State. Governor Ridge, to his credit, his program, Growing
Greener, I think it is called, which is a major commitment--I
think a special appropriation of close to $50 million was put
forward just for this particular concern that the people of
this area have. In some counties here in southeastern
Pennsylvania, we have even had referendums on the ballot that
have appropriated money from the local level to help match
State and Federal funds to secure more open space and farmland.
So, it is a very important issue. It is a farm preservation
issue. It is a preservation of our agricultural economy, which
is crucial to many communities here in southeastern
Pennsylvania, and it also goes to the quality of life, that
people move to the suburbs for a reason. They want to enjoy a
higher quality of life, and part of that is the open space and
the green space and the farmlands. So, so this is an important
topic for our area and it is one that I have worked on. And,
Larry, I appreciate your fine words on the work we have done in
Washington. I worked on the 1996 Farm Bill to create the
farmland preservation program, which is the first money that
was actually dedicated just for preserving farmland, $35
million, of which Pennsylvania has received roughly 10-percent
of that money, which obviously shows the well-advanced state of
affairs that we have here in Pennsylvania, attracting that
money from the Federal level.
Interestingly enough, my co-sponsor on that amendment to
the farm bill was Senator Barbara Boxer, so that would just
tell you that, that was a very bipartisan amendment and one
that has support on both coasts and recognizes the development
pressure in our larger, more urbanized States. So, we have
continued with that, as Senator Craig mentioned, in our
emergency funding bill. We were able to get--excuse me--the
crop insurance bill, I guess it was, and the emergency bill.
The crop insurance bill is where we got the $10 million in
authorization. So, we hope to get appropriation funding for
that $10 million and move this program forward.
We have an additional bill of $50 million that we have
offered, per year, to try to create more Federal incentives for
this in, again, in these particularly crucial farm areas. If
you go to the upper end of this county, if you go to certain
areas in Bucks County, if you go to Lancaster County, you have
got some of the most productive farmland anywhere, and it is
not just, you know, 30-acres out back that some people think of
eastern farming. This is major production agriculture and it is
very important agricultural land, and it is very important to
have this kind of production, which is accessible to the
eastern seaboard and provides really quality agricultural
products.
So, this is not just preserving a little, nice-looking
dairy farm with 30-acres that looks nice for tourism. This is
about providing food for this region and providing quality food
and fresh food for this region of the State. So, with that, I
want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, and we thank Mr. Jim Matthews,
who is here representing the county commissioners, for making
this space available to us, and we will be hearing from the
commissioner in a little bit. I appreciate your time and your
willingness to be here with us today.
Thank you.
The Chairman. Rick, thank you very much. Those of us who
are privileged to serve our States and help shape public policy
in Washington, both Rick and I serving on the Agriculture
Committee, we remain very frustrated about the current farm and
agricultural situation from the standpoint of profitability and
all the forces that a production agricultural unit has to deal
with, whether it is encroachment or whether it is higher taxes
as a result of re-zoning because of urbanization around or near
it or the sheer profitability of the product that is produced.
And, as this country struggles with farm policy, I say this
kind of as an addendum, because we as a country are clearly
struggling at this moment to decide where our public policy
will be as it relates to production agriculture.
I say that from the standpoint of a historic role that
public policy has played versus a free market force that runs
through most of us who view agriculture, as we should, as a
competitive business. At the same time, I was taught a lesson
this year, Rick. We in the Congress had shaped a caucus to work
with the administration on establishing policy to go to the WTO
plenary session in Seattle, and that is a bipartisan group,
Democrat, Republican, House and Senate, about 30 of us that
gathered on more than one occasion, working with the Secretary
and working with our trade ambassador, but Pascal Lamay, who is
the French Minister to the European Union, happened to be in
town.
We asked him to come and speak to the caucus and it was
well-attended. He is a very intelligent, outspoken man, speaks
very good English with a slight French accent, so he threw us
all off a bit by being able to speak such fluent English. And
we began to quiz him about the agricultural policies of Europe
and the heavy level of subsidizing that goes on there, directly
to the producer, and that is how they offset issues of
encroachment, that is how they offset issues of profitability.
That all becomes a part of how we deal with the issues with the
European Union and the WTO and the efforts coming out of the
Uruguay Round on GATT.
Anyway, after we had worked him over pretty hard with a
bunch of questions, he just kind of looked us directly in the
eye with a twinkle and said: Now, wait a moment. You have got
to understand we in Europe have made a decision. We do not plan
to move from it. And our decision is we will preserve the
pastoral setting of our landscapes. That's what Europeans want.
That is what we like and that is what we are going to keep. And
we have established policy across England, France, Germany,
Holland, Luxembourg and other places that will maintain that.
And he says: You have got to understand that, that is our
policy; that is not your policy. We do not plan to change. Now,
we can talk about subsidizing a product into a world market,
but don't you tell us how to treat our farmers. Period, end of
statement.
And he smiled. The conversation was over with. I think we
all learned a lesson that day, Rick. Anyway, let us move to our
first panel. I am extremely pleased this morning to have these
panelists with us. Let me introduce them to the hearing: Danny
Sells, Associate Chief, Natural Resources Conservation Service,
USDA in Washington. I understand that Danny traveled up here
yesterday afternoon, got caught in a traffic jam and so took an
alternative route through pastoral Pennsylvania. Mary
Heinricht, Regional Director for the Mid-Atlantic American
Farmland Trust from Culpeper, Virginia; Professor John C.
Keene, Department of City and Regional Planning, University of
Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Thank you all very much for being with us this morning. Mr.
Sells, let us turn to you.
STATEMENT OF DANNY SELLS, ASSOCIATE CHIEF, NATURAL RESOURCES
CONSERVATION SERVICE, USDA, WASHINGTON, DC.
Mr. Sells. Mr. Chairman, Senator Santorum, I appreciate the
opportunity to discuss with you today the important issue of
farmland protection. I am Danny Sells, Associate Chief of the
Natural Resources Conservation Service. I would like to begin
by recognizing the efforts and leadership of members of this
subcommittee for introducing S. 598 and co-sponsoring
legislation that would accelerate our work in this area.
Additionally I would like to recognize three employees of
the Natural Resources Conservation Service with me today. Janet
Oertly is the State Conservationist for Pennsylvania. The work
of our agency is done locally, working with local landowners to
protect natural resources. Janet is responsible for directing
that work in this State. This is one of, if not the, most
important jobs in NRCS, and she and her staff are doing a great
job for Pennsylvania. Janet will be discussing that work with
you on the next panel.
Also with me is Eric Carlson. Eric is from Pennsylvania and
most recently was a Resource, Conservation, and Development
Coordinator in the State. He currently is serving on our
legislative affairs staff in Washington, DC. and is doing a
great job for us, as well. Lastly, Rick Swenson. Rick is our
East Region Regional Conservationist and has only been in this
position for about a month. Rick's most recent assignment was
State Conservationist in New York. He is over Pennsylvania and
the other New England States, and we are glad to have Rick as a
part of our executive team.
Mr. Chairman, as a farmer myself from northeast Tennessee,
I know that most farmers want to stay in farming. It is a way
of life, a tradition, and we want to stay on the land. But in
recent years, I have noticed in my own community that fields
and farms are giving way to pavement and people. On viewing the
countryside on the way to this hearing, I would expect that the
same is true in many parts of Pennsylvania.
If we are to plan strategically about agriculture in the
next century, we must work to preserve both the land and the
people who work the land. We estimate that since 1967, an
average of 1.5-million-acres-of-farmland has been converted to
other uses each year. Even more troubling is that in most
States, prime farmland is being converted at two-to-four times
the rate of less-productive land. If left unchecked, conversion
of farmland will affect the Nation's food supply, reduce the
quality of our water and air, lead to the general erosion of
quality-of-life issues due to the lack of open space for some
areas of the country.
Our Federal efforts to help stem this tide include several
new initiatives. The President's fiscal year 2001 budget
included $65 million annually for the Farmland Protection
Program. The budget also proposed a $1.3 billion increase for
conservation programs that helped family farmers protect
natural resources and keep farms in operation. Within this
proposal are several initiatives, including the conservation
security program, that provide support for those farmers who
are already investing in private land conservation, a direct
payment for doing good conservation.
We should never forget that the very best way to protect
farms and farmers is for agriculture to be profitable and
economically sustainable. Additionally, the Farmland Protection
Program is a key element of the administration's Liveable
Communities Initiative. Our intention for this initiative is to
provide communities with tools, information and resources they
can use to enhance their quality of life, ensure economic
competitiveness and build a stronger community.
The Farmland Protection Program authorized by the 1996 farm
bill protects prime and unique farmland. It provides matching
funds to leverage dollars from States, tribes or local
government entities that have established Farmland Protection
Programs. The enabling legislation of the Farmland Protection
Program provided for total funding authority of $35 million,
which was exhausted by the end of 1998.
Coupled with State and local investments of about $190
million, the current program will protect 127,000-acres-of-
prime-and-unique-land on 460 farms spread across 19 States. I
believe this is a notable success for a relatively small
Federal investment. We are pleased that Congress included $10
million for a Farmland Protection Program in the Agricultural
Risk Protection Act of 2000, signed by the President this year.
This will help keep interest in the program high after 2-
years without funding any new projects. Additionally, we are
closely watching the Conservation and Reinvestment Act, passed
by the House and currently before the Senate, which could
provide up to $100 million each year for farmland protection
and related activities through the NRCS and the Forest Service.
In closing, I would like to invoke this administration's
strong support for both S. 333 and S. 598. I look forward to
working with you to protect farmland and rural areas that are
dealing with the pressure of development. Together, we can help
family farms continue their long and honorable tradition of
providing food, fiber, open space and a healthier and more
livable environment for us all. I thank the Chairman and would
be happy to answer any questions that the members may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Sells can be found in the
appendix on page 40.]
The Chairman. Danny, thank you very much. Before we go to
questions, we will hear all of the panelists, because some of
the questions, we may want to ask all of you to respond to.
Now, let me turn to Mary Heinricht, Regional Director for the
Mid-Atlantic American Farmland Trust. And you have traveled up
from Culpeper?
Ms. Heinricht. Yes, I have.
The Chairman. Welcome to the Committee.
STATEMENT OF MARY HEINRICHT, REGIONAL DIRECTOR FOR THE MID-
ATLANTIC AMERICAN FARMLAND TRUST, CULPEPER, VA
Ms. Heinricht. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Senator
Santorum. We very much appreciate this opportunity to provide
you with our views on the merits of the Farmland Protection
Program. My name is Mary Heinricht. I am the Mid-Atlantic
Director for American Farmland Trust and I focus on New Jersey,
Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware and Virginia, and that
includes the Northern Piedmont, which is the second-most
threatened agricultural region in the United States, second
only to the Central Valley in California.
We have the most valuable land here, some of the most
productive, and within 24-hours we can have fresh food and
produce to over 40-percent of the American population from this
rich area. I would like to recognize the Senator and thank both
of you for your championship of the Farmland Protection Program
since its inception. This is a very important matter. As we
look at the conversion of farmland in the next decade-and-a-
half, over 70-percent of the private lands will be changing
hands, and that means that people are going to be dealing with
inheritance issues.
We are looking at young farmers trying to figure out how to
afford to invest in land, as well as the infrastructure that
goes into farming. We have a bit of a problem in that there is
a speculative value that has been attached to farmland that far
exceeds its resource value and far exceeds the ability of the
typical farmer to invest in that land. The inclusion of $50
million in the Farm and Ranch Land Act, the Conservation
Reinvestment Act, carries a positive sign for this program and
we hope you will support its passage in the Senate this month.
Certainly, looking at the way local Government has been
able to take Federal money and leverage it, we are encouraged
that there are more and more programs looking at bringing this
to local government. The disparity of the values in the land is
really much easier handled at the local level than from a
Federal program, and so passing these funds down to local
governments, where they can look at local strategies, has been
a great benefit to them.
When you look at the leveraging that was mentioned by Mr.
Sells, this is something that will be a better and stronger
tool as time goes on. We have asked for more than $50 million a
year for the new program, and we think that really maybe the
need may be more like $150 million a year to help keep the
States growing at bringing easements to the forefront. We do
not have full participation from all around the country. Only
19 States actually have adopted easement programs, although
there are another 50 local programs.
We think that more money from the Federal Government will
encourage more and more States to do this. I am working with
Virginia at the moment, who is looking at these programs, and
quite honestly, a lot of their decision-making is based on
whether there are other funds coming in to leverage their local
contribution.
Local government talks to State government to see how they
can put funds together, and then the State government looks to
the Federal Government. So, the more we can look to Congress
giving money to the States for this purpose, I think the more
we will be encouraging those local programs to exist.
We would like Congress also to recognize the sophistication
of the approaches that State and local government is taking,
and we think that the program could be more flexible.
Currently, each of easements under the Farmland Protection
Program must comply with a lot of Federal criteria and each
individual easement has to be approved by USDA. We think that
maybe making the program more similar to Forest Legacy, where
we allow the States to determine the priorities and the
criteria for these easements, would actually make it an easier
program to deal with.
Decisions about land-use and economic investment are most
effective when they are made at the local level and implemented
at the local level, and this type of change in the program
might make it move along more quickly and be more successful.
We would also like to see them give them more leeway in how
they distribute the funding, and that maybe block funding would
make it easier for States to do this, rather than individual
funding, so that they can think about the amount of money that
is coming ahead and plan for that.
If both the local and regional strategists know the amount
of money they are going to get, then they can be putting
together their programs and their deals. Generally, easements
are put together through a group of people and a group of
efforts. Different types of programs come together to do this.
The farmers may come in groups of people and, therefore, if we
know what the number is going to be that is coming down, it
helps get everything else in order and speeds along this
process.
When you think about who participates in the easement
programs, it is generally farmers who are under some sort of
pressure, and therefore time for them really is of the essence.
If they know what they are dealing with, then it is much easier
to bring together the bankers and the other programs. We also
think that more could be done to promote participation from
States that are not currently taking advantage of the program,
including the eligibility for nonprofit entities to participate
under State approval, and maybe State supervision is one way to
do this and to help leverage again the private dollars.
Generally where we see private donations for conservation,
they tend to go to nonprofit entities and there is not really
an easy way for someone to donate money directly into a State
program. So, we might think that, you know, through State
supervision and State approval, that this might be a way to
encourage more private money to come directly into land
conservation.
Also, currently the program is written to focus on prime
soils and it limits our State's abilities to protect ranch
lands and also some unique lands. If you think along the
Eastern Seaboard about the way our wine industry is growing,
those are not prime soils. They are unique situations, but the
soils actually are not considered prime soils, so we might
think of some expansion of that criteria to give us a broader
application for this.
In closing, I would like to underscore that for the past
quarter-century the conservation and environmental objectives
in our country have been largely achieved by either regulations
or Government purchase of private properties, and they have not
resolved all of the conflicts that we have all seen. So, it is
important as we move into the new century to have more tools
for private stewardship to be contributing to those, and we see
these programs as an excellent example of how we are going to
change that and to govern a better way and to let our
communities make their own decisions.
We would like to thank you again for your leadership on
this important national issue and for allowing us the
opportunity to comment on it. And, again, we will take
questions. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Heinricht can be found in
the appendix on page 45.]
The Chairman. Mary, thank you very much. Now let me turn to
Professor John Keene, Department of City and Regional Planning,
University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Professor Keene,
welcome before the Committee.
STATEMENT OF JOHN C. KEENE, DEPARTMENT OF CITY AND REGIONAL
PLANNING, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA, PHILADELPHIA, PA
Mr. Keene. Thanks, Mr. Chairman, Senator Santorum. I
appreciate the opportunity to come and testify on this very
important bill. I would like to focus on the broader context of
managing urban growth, of curbing urban sprawl, of finding ways
of promoting the agricultural economy to keep farmers farming.
As you pointed out, Senator Craig, where the farmers are not
farming, there is not much point in protecting farmland--and,
finally, to protect prime farmland, because it is this context
within which the usefulness of agricultural conservation
easements and other specific methods must be evaluated.
I would like to say a few words about my background so that
you understand the perspective that I bring to this problem.
After graduating from law school, I practiced law in
Philadelphia for about 5-years and then found myself becoming
interested in urban problems. After getting a master's degree
from Penn in city planning, I have been on the faculty with my
research interests focusing on the protection of farmland,
growth management, and environmental policy, all of which, as
you understand, intersect.
I have been researcher and co-author of two major studies
of Farmland Protection Programs; the first, The Protection of
Farmland, was published by the National Agricultural Land
Survey in 1981, and the second, Saving American Farmland, What
Works, was published by the American Farmland Trust in 1997. I
have also been co-author of two books on growth management, one
concerning growth management in New Jersey and the other with
the Pennsylvania Environmental Council, focusing on growth-
management techniques in Pennsylvania. I have published a
number of Law Review articles and other reports focusing on
farmland protection and growth management.
It has become increasingly clear that urban sprawl is a
wasteful phenomenon. It results in the loss of prime farmland
as new suburban communities, shopping centers and industrial
facilities are constructed on the fringes of our metropolitan
areas. It has led to the depletion of the economic base of city
after city across the country as companies move out, taking
with them jobs and tax revenues. It has meant the wasteful
duplication of infrastructure on the suburban fringe, on the
rural fringe, while existing facilities in the older cities,
like Philadelphia, for instance, are being used under capacity.
It has meant the degradation of significant ecological systems.
And yet, in a general way, our Federal, State and local
policies with respect to urban development have largely
subsidized urban sprawl. I cannot take the time right now to go
into the details of that, but I think you are familiar with it,
the insurance guarantees and programs, the interstate highway
program, the programs for constructing sewer systems, sewage
treatment plants and so forth.
We no longer can afford to pursue a national policy based
on urban sprawl--we must now concentrating on finding ways of
developing effective programs for managing growth, for
protecting farmland from premature conversion on the one hand,
revitalizing our center cities, so that some of the development
pressure which has been moving centrifugally out to the edge of
metropolitan areas, is redirected to the older cities, thereby
reducing the pressure on farmland for new facilities. This is
especially important, as we have seen, in areas like the
northern Piedmont and the whole, shall we say, the west face of
megalopolis, which runs all the way from northern Virginia up
through Massachusetts.
As we demonstrated at length in Saving American Farmland,
What Works, an effective Farmland Protection Program is a
synthesis of a number of different major techniques,
agricultural protection zoning, purchase of agricultural
conservation easements, differential assessment of farmland for
real property purposes, gubernatorial executive orders which
coordinate the efforts of State agencies in programs that
affect the farmland base and so forth. No single program is
effective in isolation. It is only an integrated package which
will be effective.
Let me turn to the agricultural conservation easements
technique, which is the focus of these bills. As of February,
2000, 19 States had adopted purchase of agricultural
conservation easements, spending something like more than $937
million to protect 663,000-acres. Many local communities have
established their own PACE programs, allocating more than $300
million to protect over 150,000-acres. This is impressive
testimony to the practicality and political acceptability of
the idea of conservation easements.
The National Governors Association has endorsed the two
bills that concern farmland protection unanimously. This
technique is an essential part of any broad-based program for
protecting farmland. The challenge is demanding, the need is
urgent and the time is now. I urge the Senate to renew this
program with the largest appropriation that is feasible, given
our broader concerns for budgetary balance.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Keene can be found in the
appendix on page 48.]
The Chairman. Professor, thank you very much. Let me lead
with this question that I think--probably, Danny, to you and to
Mary, because you broached it and you talked about flexibility
of program and application of program at the local level. We
understand now that the program must have a conservation plan
developed in consultation with the NRCS. Danny, could you
explain how that works in actual practice, number one, and
number two, the extent of that plan as it relates to cost and
application, and how that generally has worked with the
conservation easements that have been put in place to date? And
I say that in the context of possibly responding also to what
Mary has suggested about blocking grants, greater flexibility
at the local level--in other words, the complication of getting
to where we want to get, complication put down by Federal
regulation; and, in fact, is it working and what are the costs
involved?
Mr. Sells. Mr. Chairman, as you well know from your own
experience with the Committee, the NRCS works at the local
level. Our main business is conservation planning, ensuring
that folks have the tools, the wherewithal and the knowledge,
through our technicians out in the field and our
conservationists, to do the right thing the first time and
hopefully protect these resources. A natural extension of
anything that would be along the lines of protecting farmland
for future generations naturally wants to look at that issue of
making sure that those resources are dealt with adequately
after an easement comes into play.
The process, of course, is just our local conservationist,
and that is the same as the local conservationist here in this
county, working with someone that, as you discussed, the
possibility that they may be interested in an easement on their
farm or having an easement placed on their farm in order to
protect that. You find these folks to be very willing. They
generally are interested in conservation and are generally more
adept at being good conservation farmers to begin with, but
also just because they have an interest in preserving that
land, you have someone who is willing to go through the process
of looking at how you treat that land after it comes into
easement.
Of course, we do have other programs that provide
assistance to that producer, as well, in order to make sure
that they can get those practices installed timely and in a
cost-effective manner. From the standpoint of the issue of
block granting, we feel at this particular point that it is
important with this very new program that has been minimally
funded at $35 million thus far have an opportunity to work,
have an opportunity to be funded at a level to really see how
it can work.
There are a lot of things you and I have to take into
consideration, and that is protecting that interest that the
taxpayer themselves are putting into this program and into that
easement. The easement is permanent, and permanent is a long
time, and making certain that we have in place the opportunity
for that to remain perpetual, providing those benefits to
society both from an aesthetic standpoint and from the
standpoint of the ability to continue to produce food and fiber
is critically important.
We think the opportunity to involve more individuals, more
people around the country, to have more partners at the table
with us, is very important in expressing the interest in making
sure that these programs continue to grow in enthusiasm as we
have seen them in the last few years. So, we are not
objectionable to looking at some alternatives, but we feel very
clearly that probably the three highest priorities we have for
this program right now, as opposed to any radical changes in
the program structure itself, is funding, funding and funding.
The Chairman. Mary, do you wish to comment on the
experiences you have had and that Mid-Atlantic has had in
cooperation with the NRCS and the local committee structure and
how that works?
Ms. Heinricht. Yes, I think our comment was to think about
how we plan this out, as opposed to objecting to the way the
program has worked. When we are talking about a conservation
easement, you are talking about the typical farm family's
value, their inheritance, the future financial health of their
family and all this. A lot of times, there are five-to-fifteen
people who actually have an interest in the land and the
business, and it is a very complicated--it is estate planning
at its most sensitive, really. So, the more things that can be
done to make that family comfortable and to give them
flexibility in how they approach this, the better.
And that is why we said allowing local flexibility-an
easement is going to be different from farm to farm to farm.
Generally, when you look at the success in Pennsylvania, of
protecting farmland, it is because you have had not only the
State program, but you have had then county programs that
supplement it, you have land trusts that help work on it, you
have a multitude of choices for that family to make in their
estate planning and in settling these things.
So, we are trying to figure out how to make them most
comfortable, and if we get the agreement between the bigger
programs done up front and we have kind of the ideas of where
each group has to comply with the other's regulations, then the
least amount of pressure and confusion happens to the farmland
owner.
The Chairman. Professor, you mentioned some of the programs
we have contributing to the urban sprawl that is obvious across
our country and our landscape today. My reaction, I wrote in my
notes as you were giving your comments, was unintended
consequences.
Mr. Keene. Exactly.
The Chairman. I don't think that when Eisenhower and others
were proposing a great interstate highway system, they were
suggesting they were going to kill inner city America or even
thinking about it at that time.
Mr. Keene. I think they probably thought that, by
increasing the accessibility of the center cities, they would
bring more jobs to the center cities.
The Chairman. Probably so.
Mr. Keene. But highways are a two-way street, so it worked
the other way.
The Chairman. We put a lot of money into our transportation
system and Rick and I learned early on in the business of
representing our States that, that was something we duked it
out for, high priority. We have a county commissioner who is
going to testify today. I doubt that he would want this county
to have any less of its share or any percentage less of share
of Federal highway transportation dollars versus State, and all
of those kinds of combinations. It has literally become the
bread and butter of the infrastructure of this country.
How do you suggest we adjust or make those kinds of changes
if, in fact, now we are having to come in on the back side and
subsidize or a form of subsidy to protect landscapes and
certain sensitive ecosystems and, of course, the agriculture
land that we are here talking about today?
Mr. Keene. Well, you put your finger on a very difficult
issue. I think as a starter ISTEA and TEA21 attempt to shift
some of the emphasis from surface highway road transportation
facilities to mass-transit facilities, which would better serve
high-density areas. That is a start in what I consider to be an
important direction. My point is that the issue of protecting
farmland has to be viewed in this broader context of urban
development, because if we do not find some way of redirecting
development pressures away from the urban fringes, in the long
run, it is going to be very difficult to maintain these
wonderful farming areas which I am familiar with around here,
in Lancaster County, one of the most productive, if not the
most productive, unirrigated county in the country, with over
$1 billion worth of agricultural produce, more than many
States.
If we do not find a way to reduce the development pressure
on the peripheral counties, ultimately, within our lifetime, we
are going to lose them. So, though it is difficult
politically--I couldn't agree with you more--we need to try to
find some way of shifting the emphasis more toward mass
transit, toward more concentrated community development and,
most importantly, toward revitalization of the old cities.
The Chairman. Senator Santorum?
Senator Santorum. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am going to
sit in for Senator Lugar and ask his question that he always
asks at these hearings, and that is agriculture is not
profitable because we have too many people producing too much
and prices are low because of that, and so why are we saving
agricultural land? I mean, what is the point? I mean, we have
got too many farmers and they are producing too much food, so
why are we out there saving agricultural land?
And your answer to that is?
Mr. Keene. Who would you like to start?
Senator Santorum. Go ahead. Take them in order. That is his
standard comment when I talk to him about this, and that is we
have got too much Ag land right now, you know, we have got too
much food we are producing. Why are we saving Ag land?
Mr. Sells. I guess, Senator, to some degree I would
probably defer to the gentlemen the Chairman mentioned from
France as having a pretty good response to that, and that's
generally what the people want. I think, in large degree, we do
want to save this farmland for a lot of different reasons. Some
of them are heartfelt and some of them are more aesthetic, from
the standpoint of the kind of communities we would all like to
live in.
I think, too, that it is important from a strategic
standpoint, as we look, coming to the next farm bill, of what
agriculture is about and what we expect it to be in the next
century and how it is going to develop and how some of the new
processes, more science and new science, is going to impact it,
and what is the appropriate amount of land to have in
production as you deal with all these issues. I think it is
absolutely critical that we come together, and I think that the
broadening of the family discussing this issue is critically
important, and that is the reason that, whether it is NGOs or
whatever, getting this thing to spread out in a broader fashion
so that more folks can be involved in looking at their
community, looking at their watershed, to plan how you would
like for that community, that watershed, to look and how you
think agriculture ought to fit in it.
You know, as we were talking about interstate highways, to
me and in my community, I'm not concerned about interstate
highways. Generally, they are in fairly decent locations and
they are there to stay. It is the smaller roads that are
killing us. You know, you build a road and the development just
follows. Well, the ability to be in a community, an active
community, that wants to make sure that they are looking at
where those roads and that development will occur--you know,
the Farmland Protection Program is not an anti-development
program, it is a Farmland Protection Program.
So, our ability to look at it as a community, to decide
where we can have agriculture, where it makes most sense, where
we can protect those prime and unique lands, and there are
other places where it is probably appropriate for us to give
that up to development, because those communities are still
going to grow. The economics are just there to do that.
Protecting our agricultural land, you can probably come up with
numbers that tell you really do not need to, but I think, from
the standpoint of this country and where we are in our history,
I do not think that our view of the world in some number of
years to come will be much different than the gentleman from
France in the fact that the people accept and want this to be
the kind of land that is aesthetically beautiful and we are
taking care of, and I think that is the point.
Ms. Heinricht. Well, when we settled America, people got
here and they got out of boats and they didn't have a whole lot
of choices as to where they could establish their communities,
but they consistently did it where they had the most productive
soils, because they needed to feed themselves. If we look at
farmland as a resource, the best soils and the unique areas
take the least amount of input, and if you think of the way we
have become very sensitized to environmental issues in America,
and, of course, we have had a great deal of debate about the
things that go into our food or do not go into our food, and
that will continue to go on.
It seems important to protect the best of that resource. A
lot of times, when I talk to communities about how to plan
their comprehensive plans, I talk about gold mines and you do
not dig for gold where there isn't gold. So, we really should
not be trying to force farmers into land to grow where it is
not well-suited. Farmers choose their crops and what they are
doing based upon the capability of the landscape there and what
takes the least amount of input. They are good businessman. The
farmers today are the ones who are the best business people,
because they have lasted through all of this.
Today, farmers are getting for some commodities the same
price they got in 1950, and yet they are still able to hang on
there. But if you think about the potential for growth in this
industry and you think about how much more you pay for food
today and how much more you eat in restaurants and how you pay
a premium for restaurants that have fresh, local produce or who
have organic food. Whoever would have thought you would be
going to a grocery store and weighing those nice, bright red
tomatoes on the vine and paying $3 a pound, and you are paying
for the vine, which you do not eat.
In northern Virginia, we have been looking at the growth of
niche farming in Loudoun County, and we can probably debate for
a long time whether Loudoun will be agricultural in the future,
but the growth in profits on that urban fringe are equal to the
growth in the high-tech industry. It is not equal in dollars,
but in terms of the profit coming to the farms more and more
every year, it is growing at the same rate.
Mr. Sells. High-tech companies do not make any profits, so
that is a different story.
[Laughter.]
Ms. Heinricht. But we have had a cheap food policy for a
long time and it has been a good policy. We have always make
decisions in America for the broadest good for everyone and we
have made decisions to subsidize certain things because it
benefits the most people, and our policies on food were meant
to benefit the people who eat. And now everybody is pretty well
able to eat and it is time to be looking at getting the farmer
more than 10 or 20 cents on the food dollar again.
Mr. Keene. That is a very broad and provocative question. I
think the broadest answers to it lie in the area that, first of
all, agricultural products have been an important part of our
international trade over the years. It ebbs and flows. They are
more or less profitable, but, on balance, they have been an
important component, making us one of the major agricultural
exporters in the world. Second is the point that Mary made,
that once you pave over prime farmland, it is gone. It is going
to be very difficult and very expensive to restore that to its
prior fertility.
But I think the broad question really needs to be broken
down into a more specific set of questions which have more
specific answers. I know I did some work in Minnesota. We were
consulting with the Department of Agriculture there about
protecting farmland, and they asked the same question: We have
so much land and so few people, why go to a lot of trouble?
Well, I think that points to an answer that the problem is
different in different parts of the country, where you have
growing populations, expanding metropolitan areas, coming into
conflict with, running headlong into prime farmland, the
arguments are much stronger for protecting farmland. Where you
have a large amount of land and relatively low population
pressures, the arguments are less strong. Different techniques
may be appropriate.
But I think really part of the answer is the point I have
made, that we are not talking just about protecting farmland.
We are talking about trying to create communities in the 21st
century which will be better places to live in, which will
allow more of a sense of neighborhood, which so many of the
suburban areas do not, which would be more efficient users of
the infrastructure being built. So, you have to look at both
sides of this coin; on the one hand, trying to build more
compact communities which are better served by mass-transit,
which provide greater diversity and, on the other hand, trying
to protect the farmland resources and the other ecological
resources which lie on the outskirts of the city.
Senator Santorum. Ms. Heinricht, you talked about the
importance of having a Federal program. Do any of you have
anything additional to add? One of the questions--again some of
the critics of this--is, well, the States are doing it, the
counties are doing it. There is really no reason for the
Federal Government to get in here and put its oar in the water
here, just let the local communities do what they want to do,
let the States do what they want to do. Do you have any comment
on that?
Ms. Heinricht. Well, I think most State and local
governments do not have a lot of the technical resources that
USDA and the Federal Government bring to this issue. If you
think about a typical agricultural County that may have five or
ten local employees, they really do not have access to a lot of
the mapping resources and the understanding of even the LESA
program or how these things come together. So, the Federal
Government really can provide a lot the background to help
local Government make these decisions, to help them make the
land-use decisions, to help them decide where to save their
land, how to do it, you know, what the best decisions are.
So, I do not believe we want to set up a whole new Federal
level, duplicating the things that the local people do, but in
a lot of cases the local governments just don't have the
capacity to get to the really big issues. So, I think they
really do complement each other quite well.
Mr. Sells. I do want to say that I honestly believe we have
got to operate these in a manner which ensures that we do not
have this become just a Federal responsibility. This is a mixed
responsibility that we all have, whether you are in a local
community or, for that matter, a local private-land owner or,
at the State level or at the Federal. I think it will only work
if we are all in this together.
I will say that the programs Pennsylvania has put into
place and the local communities stepping up to the plate, I
think it is an example of how this can be done in a more
appropriate fashion all over the country. As Mary indicated,
there are a lot of resources that the Federal Government can
bring to bear that are important, and I think the most
important one is that technical assistance, and the technical
assistance in this particular case that is provided through our
employees across the country, whether it is in these 19 States
or the balance, it is important to have that ability to provide
the technical assistance that folks need, that are out there
every day trying to make a living, or communities themselves
that are making a living doing something different than this,
that even when they come together in their meetings to begin to
plan on how they would want their community together or to come
together or to look, that they have the expertise, the
technical expertise to do better planning, to ensure that they
know what soils exist or what capabilities exist out there as
they look at where roads or developments or anything of that
nature should be.
We have, as we have talked with you before, and the chief
has, as well, we are incredibly stressed, from the NRCS
standpoint, of providing the amount of technical assistance
around the country that is needed. As we went out recently with
a set of hearings on the Farmland Protection Program and the
issues therein, that was the big cry. We need more folks out
helping, working with us every day on the land to help us make
better decisions.
There is a huge shortage of that assistance out in the
countryside and hopefully, over the course of the next budget
or two, as we look at this, we can make up some ground that we
have lost over the course of--of the correct thing of trying to
balance the budget, but hopefully get our priorities into line
where we can provide additional technical assistance, so folks,
communities, all can make better decisions when they are
planning.
Mr. Keene. If I can just add to that, Senator Santorum, one
of the most commonly used techniques for deciding which land is
the best land, which land is under the least pressure, which
land is most appropriate for the sale of a conservation
easement, is the so-called Land Evaluation and Site-Assessment
program or technique, which Mary mentioned, LESA, as it is
known by its acronym. This is really a decision-making aid, a
decision-making process which assists the county or the
township or the State to determine which parcels have the most
productive land, which are most appropriately located with
respect to prospective urban development, which ones, in short,
it makes the most sense to invest substantial amounts of money
in.
To operate the LESA, or Land Evaluation and Site-Assessment
program, to do it right, you need information. You need to know
about soil quality. You need to know about comprehensive
planning efforts. You need to know about zoning. You need to
know about prospects for development. The Geographic
Information System, which I am sure you are familiar with, is
something that is just sweeping across the country now,
providing very useful access to all kinds of natural and
economic information, but it takes money to set up a GIS
system. It takes experts to run it. And, as Mary said, many--
especially rural--counties simply don't have the revenues to
support that kind of thing.
The States could take up some of this, but certainly the
Federal Government can help out on a broader basis to bring to
bear the experience of various offices around the country. I
think this highlights one of the major reasons for having the
Federal Farmland Protection Program. It serves as an incentive
for States and local governments to engage in this kind of
protection. Their money will go twice as far, or maybe not
twice as far, but on the order of twice as far if there is a
Federal program.
It also places the imprimatur of Federal approval of
acceptability on this technique. It is, for people who are not
familiar with it, a very strong technique to have the
Government come in and buy an interest in your land. I know I
was working 20-years ago in Chester County, where we were
suggesting that this would be a useful technique for protecting
farmland and ecologically significant land, there was
resistance to it. I don't like the idea of having the
Government do it. Well, one answer is to say, well, it's okay
now. A lot of the States are doing it around the country, over
$1 billion has been spent on it, hundreds of thousands of acres
have been protected.
That reminds me of something else. I think, as Mary
suggested, that the role of charitable trusts can be very
important. In Lancaster County, for instance, the Lancaster
County Farmland Trust, working with the county, has protected,
I think, over 25,000-acres. It provides an alternative for
farmers and other landowners who are reluctant to go into a
partnership with the county or the State. They can save their
land without receiving money from the Government. These are
privately-raised funds. The more the idea of purchase of
agricultural conservation easements is common currency, the
more it is accepted, the easier it is for the nonprofit
organizations to undertake a program like this and provide what
can be a very essential parallel program to the Federal, State
and local programs.
Senator Santorum. In Lancaster County, and I have been out
talking farmland preservation there for a long time, they have
done a great job with public and private partnerships and they
have really, I thought, done a great job of buying a lot of
farms contiguous to each other to create a whole area that will
be set aside. And that is very exciting. I know, Mr. Chairman,
I am probably long on my questions here, but just a couple of
real quick ones. First off, on this block granting idea which,
I know, Mr. Sells, you are not in favor of, but who would the
block grant go to? Would it go to the State? Would it go to the
County? Would it go to a nonprofit?
Ms. Heinricht. Well, I think you would look at each--how it
was set up. I think you probably want to have a State strategy.
And we are just trying to set Virginia up based on, actually,
the Pennsylvania model. We are encouraging them to come along.
Senator Santorum. Well, the legislation was drafted after
the Pennsylvania bill. That is why we do so well under it.
Ms. Heinricht. That is where we are looking at setting a
standard and then dropping it down to the next level, to get--
--
Senator Santorum. I am still not understanding where the
money would go.
Ms. Heinricht. I think probably to the State, and then the
State would look at how it would qualify across the State, and
then your nonprofits or your county or whatever would then meet
the State standard and it would be passed through that way. I
think you will probably want to look at it.
Senator Santorum. OK. One other thing you mentioned was
estate planning which, of course, leads me to the question of
estate taxes or death taxes, as they are now called. We had
testimony at one of these other hearings from an officer from
Vermont who testified that one-third of the applications or
one-third of the land that has been set aside was the people
who came and asked for this money did so to pay for estate
taxes, as part of their estate planning. I would think estate
taxes have a very large role in the destruction of a lot of
agricultural lands in this country. Do you want to comment on
that?
Ms. Heinricht. Well, yes, I think it does.
Senator Santorum. I am just trying to make the point that
the estate tax is an anti-environmental tax. I mean, it really
is, in the sense of people selling land for development to pay
for it.
Ms. Heinricht. Well, particularly when you think about
farmland now, generally it is a larger family that all have an
interest in that land, most of whom are not farming it, and
therefore estate settlement is a very complicated issue. An
awful lot of our farmers or our farmland is farmed by non-
resident farmers, where someone down the road is actually the
active farmer, and that changes the amount of estate tax that
is due when that farm changes hands. So, it has been very
destructive to keeping farms in farming.
Mr. Keene. Could I add to that? I did a study for the
Council on Environmental Quality, called Untaxing Open Space, a
title which I always felt was kind of nice. It was a study of
differential assessment of farmland. The idea behind
differential assessment of farmland is that real property taxes
are one of the factors--of rising real property factors, taxes
are one of the factors which are forcing farmers to sell out,
because their marginal profitability is gradually declining. As
urban development pressure moves out, land values go up and
taxes rise.
We found in that study, and I haven't seen any study that
has contradicted that, that there are a number of factors that
lead farmers to sell out. It may be that they are reaching
retirement age and they do not have a member of the family to
take over. It may be that land values have gone so high that no
farmer can afford to buy a farm. The only way you can get a
farm is to inherit a farm. It may be that intruding
suburbanites are complaining so much about the farming that it
has just become a nightmare for them to continue and they are
going to say, ``I am going to cash in and go down to Florida
and take it easy, not get up every morning at dawn for 7-days a
week.''
So, there are a number of factors with respect to
differential assessment of farmland. I think the same is true
with respect to the estate tax. There are a number of factors
besides simply the estate tax burden which will lead a farmer
to sell. A farmer may be able to manage it financially, but it
may not be economically sensible for him to do that. There may
not be a member of the family to take over or there may be
disputes between the children--to take over. It may be that no
farmer can afford to buy that land.
Again, it varies so much from one part of the country to
the other. If you are talking about farming in the Metropolitan
fringe, it is much more likely that land values will be high,
making it more difficult to pass the farm on from one
generation to the next. If you are talking about farming in the
middle of Montana or a very large State with very few people,
the development value will not be much of an increment over the
agricultural-use value. So, it will be easier to sell that
ranch or that farm for farming, and therefore that won't be so
much of a problem.
So, I think we have to understand again that the answer is
not a simple one. Estate taxes, in many cases, are important.
In many cases, they may be forcing people to sell. In other
cases, they may not be the predominant factor.
Senator Santorum. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Sells. I was just going to say quickly that there is
not a silver bullet here that fixes this thing and it has got
to be a more comprehensive approach. Beyond question, estate
taxes have some impact. However, there are a lot of other
impacts and we have made a good deal of progress on some of the
State exemptions for farmland over the course of the last
several years; but an awful lot of that, as indicated by the
other panelists here, are dealing with debt, operating
expenses. And a more comprehensive approach that actually
includes, not just farmland protection, but the reality of
trying to come up with policy that helps agriculture be
productive, profitable in a fashion that allows the farmer to
stay on that land.
As I indicated in my earlier remarks, the majority of us
who are farmers want to be there. We don't necessarily need to
be millionaires from the Federal Government or anything else,
but we need the opportunity to try to hang on and stay on that
land and feed our families. And that opportunity exists in a
multitude of answers and not just in one single answer, which
probably makes it more difficult today. If there was one answer
out there, we would all be scrambling to do it.
The Chairman. Well, thank you all very much. Let me make
one comment and possibly one question of you, Danny. But,
Professor Keene, when we look at the urban and urban-fringe
growth, you referenced Montana. I come from Idaho, mostly known
to people as a large, open State, lots of public land, large
ranches. Strangely enough, the economy of those ranches is
dramatically impacted today, also. Few, if any of them, are
profitable.
As a result of that, they fall victim to being divided into
ranchettes, if you will, or smaller divisions which destroy the
concept of large ranches, most importantly destroy the concept
of open country and open range. And therefore flows of wildlife
and all kinds of things come into play there. And it has been
interesting for me over the years to watch the preservationist
movement attack ranching, only to destroy it in part--to
therefore destroy the landscape that they were wanting to
protect.
Another great influence, and I think negative, is--I call
it e-commerce wealth, young people with lots of money who find
romance with the farm or the ranch and want to go out and buy
one of these pieces of property at three times its productive
value to shoot the values up, to force a lot of other kinds of
things to happen in the marketplace of values and estates and
future acquisitions for actually productive purposes of these
properties.
Danny, my question of you--and it is not to be the
spoiler--but while we are abiding by substantial surpluses in
Washington at this moment, it does not mean we are awash with
money available to fund these kinds of programs. We have to
struggle for every dollar we can get. What has been the average
cost of a conservation easement to date since the program
started on a per-acre basis? Do you know that figure?
Mr. Sells. I do not know the figure.
The Chairman. I mean, I am sitting here looking at
background from fiscal years previous and I am seeing, for
example--and I didn't bring my calculator and it probably would
not be accurate--but I am looking at 176,254-acres at $329
million and other kinds of figure talked about; 98-farms,
10,000-acres, estimated value of $40 million. What are these
costing the American taxpayer today and is that just a Federal
presence or is that the total value for conservation easement
when you incorporate these local or State dollars that might be
at play there?
Mr. Sells. Well, that is going to be the total of all the
various investments that go into it or the total value of the
land. And, of course, in my comments I indicated that out of
the $35 million to the Farmland Protection Program that has
been used thus far, we have leveraged about $190 million of
State and local dollars. So, the contribution is reasonably
small. I have seen some numbers that at say we leverage about
eight dollars for every Federal dollar. I think it is somewhere
along those lines.
And, you know, the land ranges hugely in value. And
naturally, from the standpoint of your State compared to here,
it is going to be somewhat different, excluding those e-
commerce folks that are able to go out there and pump that
price up. My own farm in east Tennessee was purchased in the
early 1960s at about $500 per acre and today I could sell it
for better than $10,000 an acre.
The Chairman. Sure.
Mr. Sells. So, those kinds of values have caused it to
become a more expensive proposition and, in my mind, actually
showing a greater need for us to continue within those limited
budgets trying to prioritize as many dollars as we can to help
those local programs come over that last hurdle that helps them
actually get that easement in the bank so that folks can
actually protect those lands.
But, my assumption is going to be--and this is a guess, and
we will get an answer back to you--but my assumption is going
to be probably in the neighborhood of an easement running on
average probably somewhere between $2,000 and $3,000--
probably--an acre across the country when you put everything
together. But, again, I think that would be the total easement
value and not just the Federal contribution.
The Chairman. I have no way of calculating that.
Senator Santorum. Pennsylvania is $1,952, so about $2,000.
But, in Jim's county, in Montgomery County here, which is the
third-highest, the average is $5,200 an acre.
The Chairman. And part of the reason, you have just stated,
Dan.
Yes, Professor?
Mr. Keene. It varies so much from one State to the next and
from one area to the next.
The Chairman. The difference we have experienced, certainly
with these kinds of easements versus scenic-value easements--
usually scenic-value easements are drawn or acquired after you
have drawn a line around a designated area, and by that line
you have created a bidding war that shoves up values and the
last one out gets the highest value, unless you lock a value in
at the Federal level, which we have never done to date, and I
have seen entry easements go for as much as 200- to 300-percent
less than the final easement acquired with it, but that is
because you have got designated boundaries. That would be less
the case here.
Ms. Heinricht. Some of the programs actually include
discounting of the easements in their programs. Delaware, for
example, their program, they do appraisals of all the
properties in the application and then that is made public. And
then the farmers come in and discount what they will accept.
The Chairman. Is that against a fixed value or a fixed
amount of money to be distributed for those acquisitions?
Ms. Heinricht. Yes, they know how much is going to be spent
that year.
The Chairman. So they tend to then bid themselves down into
the value or the amount?
Ms. Heinricht. Right. Very few programs are actually paying
full market value for the easement itself, so that a great deal
of it is the landowner donating some of that value, and again
that is where taxes come in, because they get to take a tax
advantage for that donation.
The Chairman. I am going to have to conclude this panel or
we are going to run out of time, folks. We could go on all day
about this. It is important. Yes, Professor?
Mr. Keene. Could I make a request? I received the
invitation to attend this hearing toward the beginning of last
week and I had a number of other obligations. I wonder if I
could have a few days to submit my full statement?
The Chairman. Surely.
Mr. Keene. I have a copy of my remarks and I have a copy of
the American Farmland Trust book. I do not know whether you
have this for your files, but I would like you to have it,
because I think it does talk about the purchase of conservation
easements.
The Chairman. Well, we value your testimony and, of course,
you can have that time, because we want your full statement be
a part of the record we are building here.
Mr. Keene. Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you all very much for being with us
this morning. Let us move to our second panel then. Well, the
commissioner that was referenced by Senator Santorum, the
Honorable James Matthews, Commissioner, County of Montgomery
here in Norristown, Pennsylvania--Janet, how did we decide to
pronounce your name? Thank you. Janet Oertly, Pennsylvania
State Conservationist, Natural Resources Conservation Service;
Omar Beam, recipient, Farmland Protection Program; and Marion
Bowlan, Executive Director of Pennsylvania Farmlink, from
Manheim, Pennsylvania.
Representative Bunt.
Mr. Bushnell. Good morning. I am Bill Bushnell. I am
Legislative Assistant to Representative Ray Bunt. The
representative sends his apologies. He is under the weather
this morning.
Senator Santorum. Oh, okay. Thank you.
The Chairman. Bill?
Mr. Bushnell. Bushnell.
The Chariman. Bushnell. All right. Commissioner, this is
your home turf. Therefore, you are the ranking. We will start
with you, Commissioner Matthews. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF JAMES R. MATTHEWS, COMMISSIONER, COUNTY OF
MONTGOMERY, PA., NORRISTOWN, PA.
Mr. Matthews. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning,
Senator Santorum, as well.
Senator Santorum. Good morning.
Mr. Matthews. Well, being the ranking does not mean the
most informed, but I am one of those guilty parties the
professor spoke to. My expertise in the last 30-years has been
in the area of veterans financing. I have been in residential
housing for years and I know to what point he was alluding, the
unintended consequences of the success of the Veterans
Administration program in populating our suburbs and
depopulating our farms.
Having mentioned myself as a guilty party, I am not
necessarily the most informed party sitting next to the
representative of our agricultural chair, I believe--isn't he--
in the house, and in the absence of Elizabeth Emlin, who I had
hoped to have here this morning, of our farmland preservation
group. I will continue nevertheless. But, before I give my
prepared comments, I would note something that Mr. Bunt is wont
to say to folks in this situation.
He speaks frequently of the fellow who comes down his
driveway and cannot get back into traffic on the rural roads
out here in the suburbs in Montgomery County and who becomes a
rabid advocate of farmland preservation and who gets very, very
involved after just a few years here on the Montgomery County
reservation in condemning the conversion of farmland to
residences, and who then is confronting the farmer across the
way and trying to do anything he can to preclude the sale of
that beautiful, pristine farmland. But, without thinking, what
was the farmer's view before he moved in 2-years prior? He has
lost his few, as his gentleman is now afraid to lose his. What
it all comes down to, not to get too urban, but Philadelphia is
my homeland, is that money seems to be everything. Money seems
to be the root here of all of these conversions.
This is the nest egg. This is the stake, especially in the
climate of low profitability. You are talking--you can allude
to the IRA, 401(k), the family assets, whatever, but when
confronted by a voracious consumer appetite for the standard
suburban dream, it is very difficult for our farmers, and I am
a member of the Grange, to turn away from the lure of the
dollar. So, when Mr. Payone and Mr. Cutler, when CNM developers
and others come forward offering prime dollars, it is very
difficult. In the absence of what the previous panel mentioned,
I think the three priorities were funding, funding, funding, I
will add funding, speaking for Montgomery County, as another
priority.
We need more money to offer the farmers as a compensation,
if you will, economically for the allure of the quick dollar
from the developers who are offering so much per acre right now
to develop that farmland into housing. So, yes, we need more in
the way of funding. We have had some catastrophic losses of our
own. I am deviating from prepared statements here. The
Matthews, as you know, do not go very well with prepared
statements.
The Chairman. We understand you have a black sheep in the
family.
Mr. Matthews. I understand. That is true. So I will get to
the nuts and bolts here. We have 462 farms in Montgomery County
and only 41,500-acres-in-farms. That was based on a 1997 census
figure. So, we have lost over 30,000-farmland-acres and 250-
farms in the last 20-years. In the last 50-years, we have lost
120,000-farmland-acres and over 2,300-farms. Obviously,
developmental pressure continues and we are fearing that over
the next 20-years our population is going to go up 86,000
folks, which is a 12-percent increase in our current
population.
We certainly have a viable farming community and we sell
annually an immense amount, $37 million in agricultural
products in Montgomery County. That is not big by Idaho
standards, but we are talking something important in Montgomery
County here, the aesthetics as well as the production. We have
a farmland preservation program that has been very successful.
We purchase development rights, and it is one of the best tools
we have for preserving our community.
Since 1989, we have preserved 56 farms and a total of
4,650-acres. This is only 11-percent of our county's existing
farmland, only 11-percent, so we sincerely have to preserve
more as time allows. The enterprises are substantial: dairy;
beef; buffalo; poultry; orchards; Christmas trees; feed process
centers, etc.. There is no question we are diverse here, but we
need to pay farmers high land values because of the high market
value of the land, and we consider it worth the cost.
Quite honestly, yes, I would lean to the aesthetic side of
the argument, as opposed to the produce and to the production
side. Needless to say, our port in Philadelphia is quite
active. The figures run into the hundreds of millions of fruit
and vegetable products we bring in from South America right
here on our eastern shore here in Philadelphia. But
aesthetically, as the professor so ably stated, once it is
concreted over, it is gone.
Now, the Federal Farmland Protection Program, we are very
much in favor of it. It has been available, as you know, for
three rounds, since 1996. The Pennsylvania Department of
Agriculture forwards the information to us each time a new
round is announced and each county is encouraged to submit
applications, especially if the farms contain a large amount of
soils in agricultural capability classes I and II and were
relatively large in size, but these measurements discourage
Montgomery County farmers.
We have excellent agricultural production, but there are
virtually no class I soils anywhere in the county, nor are our
farms as large as those in other parts of the State. Montgomery
County's median farm size of 36-acres ranked 65th out of 67
counties. So, you talk about Montana, we have been diced and
sliced for a long time now.
We strongly encourage the Federal Government, strongly, to
support farmland preservation in areas like ours under great
developmental pressure. If we do not save the farmland now,
well, etc., etc.. We all know. It has become a refrain in
Pennsylvania, the most popular expression referring to Mr.
Hilton and his work, Save Our Land, Save Our Towns, and those
phrases are interchangeable. We have to act now and we could
use, as two of the three earlier speakers alluded to, funding,
funding, funding.
The Chairman. Commissioner, thank you. Bill, we will now
turn to you, speaking on behalf of Representative Bunt, and
your full statement, as his, will become part of the record, as
well.
STATEMENT OF BILL BUSHNELL, LEGISLATIVE ASSISTANT TO
REPRESENTATIVE RAYMOND BUNT, JR., 147TH DISTRICT, MONTGOMERY
COUNTY, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA
Mr. Bushnell. Sure. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and
Senator Santorum. I am Bill Bushnell. I am District Legislative
Assistant to State Representative Raymond Bunt, Chairman of the
House Agricultural Affairs Committee. I will read his prepared
statement.
We, in Pennsylvania, take farmland preservation very
seriously and have since 1988 when the legislation was approved
to create our statewide program. Subsequently, our program was
funded by a voter-approved $100 million bond issue. This voter
referendum notably passed overwhelmingly. In addition, later
legislation earmarked two cents per pack of our State cigarette
tax for the program.
More recently, there was a $43 million special
appropriation as part of the 1999-2000 State budget and a
commitment of an additional $20 million per year for the next
5-years. Furthermore, since this is a cooperative State/county
program, it is to their advantage for counties to commit monies
of their own. Most have responded and there have been a total
of $93.7 million, county dollars, committed to the effort.
Recently, because of municipal interest, our law was amended to
allow local governments to participate in the effort by
contributing funds of their own.
To date, the States and counties have spent a total of
$334.4 million for permanent easements on farmland. Combine
this with the fact that we are positioned to spend a minimum of
$45 million a year of State monies to preserve our valuable
farmland for the next 5-years, and I would guess that this is a
commitment to a farmland preservation unmatched by any other
State. As a result, I am pleased to be able to report that, to
date, Pennsylvania has perpetually preserved 1,381-farms,
comprising over 170,000-acres in 42 county statewide. Even so,
new applications are being received at the rate of nearly 500-
per-year.
This is in addition to the approximately 1,400-farms and
172,700-acres in the pipeline or on the waiting list statewide.
In other words, even with all of our success, we currently have
more farms that have applied and are waiting than we have
preserved in the past 10-years. In most counties, there is a 3-
to 5-year backlog of farms. I offer these statistics as
dramatic evidence that preserving farmland is of the highest
priority to both our farmers and our citizenry.
The success of and demand for being included in the program
proves that there is both a need and interest for it to
continue, and the Pennsylvania General Assembly continues to
wholeheartedly support it. With respect to the Federal program,
I want to acknowledge that we have received Federal money in
three of the past 5-years, totaling $2.2 million. This
additional money was most appreciated and, as a supplement to
our State funding, was well-spent.
Nonetheless, I have demonstrated that our State money
dwarfs what we receive and, more importantly, our demand still
far exceeds what the State alone can provide. Therefore, any
additional Federal dollars would be most welcome. Finally, as
you consider this issue, I certainly hope that Pennsylvania's
commitment and success is viewed as a reason to increase our
allocation and not an indication that we are either willing to
or capable of meeting the demands for funding on our own--with
our program counties--are rewarded with greater matching funds
for the dollars they put into the program.
I suggest that States making a financial commitment of
their own should be likewise rewarded with a higher percentage
of the total Federal dollars. Once again, I would like to thank
you for the opportunity to share Pennsylvania's perspective on
preserving farmland forever.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bunt can be found in the
appendix on page 51.]
The Chairman. Bill, speaking on behalf of Representative
Bunt, let me thank you very much for being here today. Now let
me turn to Janet Oertly, Pennsylvania State Conservationist,
Natural Resources Conservation Service, USDA.
Welcome.
STATEMENT OF JANET L. OERTLY, PENNSYLVANIA STATE
CONSERVATIONIST, NATURAL RESOURCES CONSERVATION SERVICE, USDA,
PHILADELPHIA, PA.
Ms. Oertly. Good morning. Mr. Chairman and Senator
Santorum, thank you for inviting me to discuss the use of the
Farmland Protection Program here in Pennsylvania. I am Janet
Oertly. I am the State Conservationist for Pennsylvania, for
the Natural Resources Conservation Service. I would like to
begin by recognizing the efforts and leadership of members of
this subcommittee, especially Senator Santorum, for taking an
active role on this issue.
Pennsylvania is a rich diversity of landscapes created by
its location, climate and soils. This rich diversity has
allowed Pennsylvania farmers to provide food and fiber to our
Nation for over 200-years. Sustaining farms in Pennsylvania for
centuries has been possible through sound land stewardship.
Because of this tradition of land stewardship, it is no
surprise to me, a native Pennsylvanian, that Pennsylvania is
one of the leaders in protecting farmland in this Nation.
Pennsylvania has one of the highest rural populations in
the Nation. Farmers on the edge of urban development face many
challenges. As a response to the need to protect Pennsylvania's
largest industry, agriculture, the State has used Federal
programs, such as the Farmland Protection Program, to enhance
local and State programs. Governor Ridge's 21st century
Commission identified sprawl as the most important
environmental issue in the State.
The recent passage of Pennsylvania's Growing Greener and
Growing Smarter legislation provides a significant increase in
State funding and local planning for farmland protection. In
Pennsylvania, the Federal Farmland Protection Program funds
have been used to leverage funds from the State and local
Government entities that have Farmland Protection Programs.
The program has facilitated conservation partnerships with
the State and local Government entities to acquire perpetual
conservation easements. It is one part of a broader effort to
protect farmland from urbanization, and helps to maintain a
healthy environment and a sustainable rural economy. The
national program was originally funded at a level of $35
million. Pennsylvania received over $3 million of that national
funding.
With these funds, 57 farms representing 11,419-acres-of-
farmland in Pennsylvania will be permanently protected and will
continue to remain in agricultural uses. In addition, the
Federal investment in farmland protection was matched by about
$24 million in State and local contributions. This represents
that for every Federal farmland protection dollar sent to
Pennsylvania, there has been another eight dollars in State and
local funds to match this investment.
I might add that each of these farms has a complete
conservation plan and the owners have committed to a schedule
for complete implementation. The availability of the technical
assistance funding needed to help farmers plan and implement
these plans is an important part of the program in
Pennsylvania. Allow me to describe one example of the program
in southeastern Pennsylvania. Three farms in Berks County's
scenic and productive Oley Valley added over 350-acres-of-
permanently-protected-farmland to the 28-farm, 3,600-acre block
of farmland in the valley.
The Oley Valley has been one of the region's most important
agricultural areas since originally being cleared by German
farmers over 200-years ago. The Brown, Mast and Rothermill,
Hopewood and Ford farms, added with help from 1998 Farmland
Protection Program funds, are all adjacent to other permanently
protected farms. The Farmland Protection Program is making
progress in protecting farmland, but as we have heard the needs
are great and more resources are needed.
As Mr. Sells indicated on the earlier panel, our agency is
committed to working with you, Mr. Chairman, and the members of
this committee to continue funding and supporting for the
program so that we can maximize the benefits of the State and
local initiatives. I look forward to working with you on this
issue. We need to extend the funding authorization for the
Farmland Protection Program to make it work. And I will be
happy to answer any questions that members might have and thank
you again for the opportunity.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Oertly can be found in the
appendix on page 53.]
The Chairman. Janet, thank you very much. Now we turn to
Mr. Omar Beam. You are unique to the panel, and I say that
because we have heard from advocates and those who put the
programs together. Now it is pleasing to hear from a recipient
of the Farmland Protection Program. Nice to have you with us.
STATEMENT OF OMAR BEAM, RECIPIENT, FARMLAND PROTECTION PROGRAM,
ELVERSON, PA.
Mr. Beam. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and Rick. My wife and
I--my wife is here in the audience; I brought her along--we
have a family farm. We went into the program in 1997. We sold a
little over 200-acres of our development rights to the State.
The county is out with a new book and it is really interesting.
Chester County just come off--it is really--I wish they had had
something like this printed when we sold our development right,
but it gives you a lot of guidelines for tax structure and
everything as you sell your development rights.
We started farming in 1950 and my, how things have changed
since then. My dad was a farmer, but he had come from New
Jersey. And he told me, when I wanted to start farming--he said
my advice to you would be if you can't do anything else, is
what they said when he was a boy, if you can't do anything
else, you can farm, because anybody can walk behind the plow
and handle a fork. But, he says, the day is coming now, if you
can't farm, you better do something else, because it became so
much like a business and it was altogether different. There
were so many decisions that had to be made.
When we started out, and the question then, when we come to
a certain age, how do we retire? I had a son that came back
from Penn State, and when he came back I soon saw that his
education and his decisions around the farm there, that we
needed somebody in leadership with a different viewpoint on
things than what I had when I was farming.
And the sad part of it is, about all of these problems, is
the farmers in our community--and by the way I am from Chester
County. I better make that plain. There has been a lot about
Lancaster County. But we receive the dust that blows over the
hill in Chester County and that is what keeps us afloat. But
anyhow, the farmers were bidding against farmers, and that is a
good way to wean out the farmers that have difficulty surviving
or are poor managers, by bidding against each other, because
the poor farmer who does not make the right decision is going
to soon be left in the dust.
But then when we came and we had to bid against a
developer, things really changed, in that changed the whole
structure in our community. The developers came out there and
they all wanted the best land, class I and II and III, and we
all know that class I and II is the easiest to develop. That is
the land he wanted and he could afford to pay more than a
farmer.
The thing of it is with a farmer, if you plant an acre of
corn and you get 150 or 200 bushels to the acre and you get two
dollars a bushel, there is only so much income you can get from
that one acre. But you take a developer, he can easily add
$5,000-to-$10,000 per lot because he is buying the best land
and it is easier to develop, and people are moving out and that
is just what they want.
We have a lot of Amish people not too far from our
community, and the thing that they are doing is dividing their
farms up because they can no longer afford to buy more land and
more farms. And this is going to hurt us. I have been involved
in decisions in the township--well, I have been a township
supervisor 30-plus-years. I won't say how many. But anyhow,
this is going to hurt us because you are going to get more
pollution. I'd rather them spread their manure on 100-acres.
They are spreading it now on 30-acres and there are many ways
that is not the answer to the problems. And this is the route
they are taking because they do not want to carry the debt.
We have to realize, when we started farming, I remember
after the first 10-years we were feeding like 70-head-of-
cattle, we had 200-hogs, we farmed 100-acres and we thought we
were really getting up there. But, when I retired, we were
farming 600-acres and we had about 3,000-hogs and we also had
several hundred cattle. So, for my son to take over, it made it
difficult. And we have some difficult decisions to make. And we
wanted to leave the farm because all of our assets, of my wife
and I, was tied up in the farm. And yet my son wanted to keep
on farming, and we do have some good soil. And another thing
that was a plus to us, we had four or five neighbors that had
sold their development rights, which makes a nice block there
in our community.
So, the business decisions today of a farm, a lot of them
are made in the office. Farming is so much different and it
takes so much money, so for us to look at the development
rights in order to hand the farm over to my son, hopefully it
works out someday that he can do that. But the last year has
been a drought year and the low hog prices and so on and with
the low grain prices, it has been making it kind of difficult.
But I think when a farmer decides what he wants to do,
there are several things he needs to look at. And it has been
talked about; one is money, one is family and one is friends.
Family is important to my wife and I, and my son likes to farm
and he is a good farmer. He was a good student at school and we
want to try to help him out. And friends, community, you know,
if we go back and one of the first Commandments we have is love
your neighbor as yourself. Well, today that is not the thing
most of us do.
I could have sold that farm, 240-acres, and put a
development in there. But we have a farm that has went that
route, and I am not condemning him. But the thing of it is they
had just built a new school in our community. Now that school
is being filled up because there are 200-and-some homes going
into his farm there and it raises the taxes for the farmers
that is already there.
So, my wife and I took a look at that. We took a look at
the family situation and we took a look at the money. We didn't
get the most money by going this route, but that is not the
problem. The problem is we want to leave this world or leave
this community with a lot of friends involved. My wife and I
have always loved to work the soil, raise the crops, harvest
the crops. That has really been important to us.
So, selling our land for the development rights was a way
out for us that we could do this, and I am happy we made the
decision. I am glad of it. So, thanks. If you have any
questions later on, I will be glad to answer them.
The Chariman. Omar, thank you very much for that testimony.
That adds a valuable perspective to the record we are trying to
develop. Now let me turn to Marion Bowlan, Executive Director,
Pennsylvania Farmlink.
Welcome.
STATEMENT OF MARION BOWLAN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, PENNSYLVANIA
FARMLINK, MANHEIM, PA.
Ms. Bowlan. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Senator Santorum.
Let me begin by giving you some background information on
myself. I am a third generation farmer from Lancaster County
with experience in both beef and vegetable production.
The Chairman. Then let me apologize. I said Mr. Beam was
the only farmer before us this morning. Not true.
Ms. Bowlan. I have two roles.
The Chairman. All right. Thank you.
Ms. Bowlan. We sell our hormone and antibiotic-free beef
directly to consumers. I am also the Executive Director of
Pennsylvania Farmlink, which is a nonprofit organization that
works with beginning and retiring farmers to create more
farming opportunities in Pennsylvania. Farmlink is part of the
larger National Farm Transition Network that works to establish
the next generation of farmers.
In addition to that, I am also a member of USDA's National
Commission on Small Farms and I am a current member of the USDA
Small Farm Advisory Committee. So, that is some background on
me. I want to talk to you about both my professional and
personal experience and some recommendations that I have for
the farmland preservation program. I would really like to focus
my talk on the very human problems that currently are not
addressed by this program.
I want to begin by telling you a little bit about
Pennsylvania Farmlink and its work with beginning and retiring
farmers, with the mission of creating farming opportunities for
the next generation. We provide regional seminars on passing
the farm on to the next generation. We provide new-and
beginning-farmer workshops and marketing workshops that are
targeted to improve the farmer's bottom line.
We also operate a linking service that matches farm owners
with people who want to get into farming. Although we are a
small agency, we have been successful in making a difference in
the lives of many farmers by getting them to realize they need
to plan for the future of their families and their farms. I
wanted to let you know about our organization so I could relate
to you what I have encountered in my professional work.
The critical time for a farm to go out of farming is when
the existing farmer is thinking about retirement or is already
retired. Particularly if the children do not want to farm or
take over the farm or if there are siblings who do not agree on
what should happen to the farm, the farm is vulnerable.
Let me explain. I recently worked with a family that had
two sons that were interested in farming. Both had off-farm
jobs and were helping their parents in their spare time. The
parents were retirement age, but couldn't afford to move off
the farm so that their sons could take over. I suggested that
they preserve their farm and use the sale of the conservation
easements for their retirement needs.
The family applied for farmland preservation funds, but
they are not at the top of the list because of soil types and
proximity to other development. I am not disputing these
factors and agree that soil types and development proximity are
important considerations. What I would like you to consider is
the human element. Is there an individual who wants to take
over the farm? Could we preserve this farm if we took into
account the family circumstances? Is there a farm succession
plan? Do we have a beginning farmer who wants to farm the land?
These farms are businesses that are run by human beings and
we need to take into account their human needs. Unfortunately,
these human issues currently receive little or no consideration
in selecting the farms that are being preserved. I contend that
they should. Arecent Penn State study indicates that of all the
farmland sold in southeastern Pennsylvania in the last 10-
years, only 23-percent remained in agriculture.
This is occurring in spite of the best farmland
preservation program in the Nation, and I might add that our
farm has been on the waiting list for selling our development
rights in Lancaster County for 7-years. Yes, additional funding
is an issue and is needed. Farmers in Pennsylvania are very
interested in preservation, but if the funding is not available
or if their family situation is pressing, the temptation to
sell to developers is also present.
I would contend that increasing funding for preservation
programs is not the only issue. With the family I just
discussed, what will happen? The family cannot afford to move
off the farm and retire unless they sell the farm. Even though
they may want to give their sons the opportunity to farm, they
may decide to sell the farm at market value because, in the
long run, that may be what is best for their family. If we have
the opportunity to get the next generation on the farm, how do
we help?
Everyone agrees we want our farmland to be used and be
productive. The intention of the program is to preserve
farmland and not just open space. How do we decide who will be
our next generation of farmers? That brings into focus a big
problem that we face in years to come. In the Nation, we have
three times as many farmers over 65 as under 35. Recent census
of agriculture statistics indicate that farmers under the age
of 35 decreased an alarming 46.4-percent from 1987 to 1997.
Today's slim profit margins make it very difficult for a
new generation of farmers to get started. How are we going to
help? One of the ways we can help is to tie farmland
preservation efforts into farm succession efforts. I made these
recommendations as a member of the National Commission on Small
Farms and my current work with the USDA Small Farm Advisory
Committee. They are still pertinent.
Why don't we provide incentives to farm families to
transition their farm to a new generation of farmers, related
or not, by giving them extra points for developing an active
plan to pass their farm on to an enterprising new farmer? This
would give an extra boost to the family I just mentioned and
would put them higher up on the waiting list for preservation.
It just may save the farm for this family and others like them.
As we all know, we make decisions based on our own family's
circumstances. The independent farmers of this Nation need your
help in securing a new generation of farmers who can establish
productive, profitable livelihoods and retain our most precious
resource, our farmland. Now I want to switch gears a little bit
and talk about my own individual situation.
Largely through the efforts of my mother, my husband and I
were able to purchase the farm that came down through her
family. We have farmed it for the last 12-years. We both took
off-farm jobs to provide for the economic security our family
needs. We have two children. At least one is interested in
farming. We decided to preserve our farm 7-years ago and have
been on the waiting list ever since.
This year, because of an extra infusion of farmland
preservation funds, some Federal, Lancaster County is working
on their backlog of applicants. We may yet see our farm
preserved. Either my son or my daughter will get the
opportunity, and if they do not want it, some other
enterprising individual will. What three generations have
worked to protect while deriving income from it will go on.
What better legacy can we leave behind?
I have also worked to try to get my siblings to agree to
preserve the land my father and mother farmed for 55-years and
where he still lives. My mother died 4-years ago. Some of my
siblings want the money they could get from the sale of the
farm at its market value. Some want to see it stay a farm. My
father feels caught in the middle. He doesn't want to decide.
How do we assist families with these decisions? These are big,
once-in-a-lifetime decisions. How can we help families make
these decisions about farmland protection?
Certainly, providing educational assistance and farm
succession planning assistance similar to some of the services
that the Farmlink programs will help. And, I might add, we need
your financial help, as well. Pennsylvania Farmlink and other
linking programs across the country work with families to
transition their farms to the next generation. We know that
farms need farmers to farm them. Help us help those farm
families put the pieces together so they can transition their
farm to the next generation and for generations to come.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Bowlan can be found in the
appendix on page 58.]
The Chariman. Well, thank you very much for that valuable
testimony. That is the human dimension that we thought of in, I
think, substantially different terms in the concept of creating
this program and what you have brought to us. I think what you
are proposing is growing as a concept to be incorporated, but
it is one that clearly is not there at this time. Commissioner,
you talk about the lands here in this county that you have
participated in helping protect. Have those farms been blocked
or are they contiguous? Have you looked at that as an
overriding concept in trying to create blocks of land?
Mr. Matthews. It is defined areas, target areas, that are
eligible, and it is, obviously, substantially the western
portion of the county.
The Chariman. How successful have you been in bringing
about contiguous acreages?
Mr. Matthews. I would say, based on my recollection of the
mapping, that we have no more than 8- to 10-percent contiguous,
and that might even be an exaggeration, Senator. Again, it is a
targeted area. We have not been that successful in
preservation, an 11-percent area, but it is more or less again
the western portion of the county, so again very little
contiguous, 5-percent, I would say, tops.
Our problem remains the cost per acre, the agricultural
value versus the market value that has been addressed so
frequently this morning.
The Chairman. Have you, as a Commissioner, had personal
dealings in these properties, knowing the people involved? I
mean that from the standpoint of being able to respond to the
next question. How many of these properties or owners were
driven by problems of estate tax and the general problems of
ownership transition?
Mr. Matthews. I would not have that personal knowledge,
Senator.
The Chariman. All right. Janet, apart from authorizing more
money, with your experience on the ground, what can the
Committee do to make farmland protection more efficient than
the current program?
Ms. Oertly. Well, I think we have used all the flexibility
that the Committee afforded us in the current program in the
way we operate it in Pennsylvania in allowing us to utilize the
State and local easement process that is already in place in
Pennsylvania. So, in Pennsylvania it operates fairly much as a
seamless system, because we have looked at their easement
documents. They add a Federal reversionary clause into their
easements and we have just piggy-backed on what they are doing.
We also look at the criteria that they are using and we
have tried to mirror that. Probably, from what I have heard
from my State counterparts, something that might make it
operate more efficiently is if they knew for certain. There was
going to be an annual Federal Farmland Protection Program. For
example, in Senator's Santorum's proposal, if there were going
to be $50 million available every year, then they know it is
there, as opposed to how much is it going to be. It is almost
like a given amount that they know is coming.
And I strongly support the idea of local and State input,
which we have tried to do very much in Pennsylvania, so they
know where we are coming from and can prepare for it. If there
is a set amount that is coming and a set timeline as to when,
then they can prepare. Sometimes when the program announcement
has come out, there have not been enough days perhaps for them
to get everything prepared that they would like to in order to
submit their priority list of farms.
The Chariman. OK. Thank you. Rick, questions?
Senator Santorum. Yes, thank you. And thank you all for
your testimony. And just a couple of points. Mr. Beam, your
point about the Amish is a very important one. Do the Amish
participate in this program? I would think they don't, but do
they?
Ms. Oertly. I think they may through the trust, as opposed
to the Government.
Ms. Bowlan. They do in Lancaster County through the
Farmland Trust.
Senator Santorum. They do? And the reason I mentioned that
is if they would, I am sure they wouldn't participate through
the Federal Government or through the State government, but
that adds to maybe some of the points of the flexibility of the
program. Do you have any comments about Commissioner Matthew's
comments about the fact that there are no class I soils here
and they do not have large farms and the skewing of some of the
criteria that may be out there, and the point about maybe some
more flexible criteria to be able to deal with some of the
different situations that we have?
Ms. Oertly. Well, what we have tried to do in the Federal
program is we actually go down to land capability class III and
consider the soils of statewide importance. So, we do look at
land capability classes I, II and III in our criteria, which
brings it down a little bit closer to what you are looking at
in Montgomery County. We do look at the number of acres
involved, that is where the size of the farm would actually
come into play. So, we do look at that.
We did, in the very last round, take a look at the fact
that when you look at some of the soils in particular and if
you listed all of the farms in a priority order, it becomes
very difficult to get any Federal dollars outside of a specific
area, because of the predominance of class I soils, and the
amount of money that the local county program may be offering.
They would ask for less of the Federal dollars. So, we looked
at the uniform planning regions across the State and set as one
of our criteria that we would take the top farm offered from
each of those 10 planning regions, because we were hearing a
lot from some of the counties in the western half of the State,
saying, ``We are not able to compete to get some of these
funds.''
By doing that, they all sent in their priority farms and we
took the top farm that ranked out from each of those uniform
planning regions. And that was flexibility we already had.
Senator Santorum. OK. Any of the concerns that Ms. Bowlan
brought up? Those are not really decisions you would make on
the Federal level. Those would be more the local communities
making those decisions, using those factors?
Ms. Oertly. Yes.
Senator Santorum. Jim, are you aware of any? Is that a
factor in looking at what farms you are going to preserve? Is
the situation the family may be in or the pressure they may be
under?
Mr. Matthews. No, we look at it more as to locale as a
priority. We are trying to stop certain movement in certain
areas where there is a lot of congestion and just grab that
piece of land right there. That is our number one priority
right now, is the locale, what is the front line of development
in that area, where does it look like it is going, and we will
lean more in that direction--again, our problem being the
dollars involved.
It is difficult--I can't speak for Mr. Beam, but I know it
is difficult for many of the farmers I have spoken to. Senator
Craig asked me how many of these I have had person-to-person
contact with. Not those who did, but those who were considering
it, I have talked to a good many farmers and they are afraid of
the necessity to sell at some of the very high prices they are
being offered for their land. And they are afraid, where they
had not thought about it in the past, they are thinking about
it now and how close can we come. Well, once you get up to
these land values of $14,000, $16,000, $17,000 an acre, there
is no way we can compete.
Senator Santorum. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate
your testimony, everybody.
The Chairman. Jim, one of the things you just mentioned is
critical. Most farmers are farmers at heart. I know I grew up
and actively farmed and ranched until I changed locations and
went indoors, where there is no heavy lifting, at least that is
what some people think about the work that Rick and I are now
in. But, most farmers don't want to sell their land for
development. They don't really look at it from that standpoint
if they are long-term farmers, and yet, as has been stated, it
is their retirement. That is how the family plans for its
retirement. It doesn't go out and buy retirement programs and
that. It usually considers, at some point in time, termination
of active farming and moving into retirement and the
accumulation of assets and the ability to transfer those assets
in a way that sustains the property in a farming environment
for--especially if it is for a family member, and then to be
able to live from them in what most farmers would think is a
lifestyle they would like to have at the end of their work
period in life.
It is a very real frustration. I am not sure how we
incorporate the human factor at this time. I think you brought
up an extremely valuable point, Marion, and it is one that is--
it is something that is not measurable. It is emotional and it
is real. I know it is real. I have been there with my family,
and yet at the same time when we are asking--whether it is USDA
or Soil Conservation Service or whether it is State and local
communities--to make judgments based on aesthetics or open
space or traffic patterns or development directions, those are
fairly measurable and predictable. That is something that, to
get into some of these other values and to make that a
criteria, how do we do that successful with the program?
Ms. Bowlan. Could I comment on that?
The Chairman. Please do.
Ms. Bowlan. One of the recommendations that we put in the
report from the National Small Farm Commission was that, in
addition to some of these other practices like conservation
practices that farmers are required to do to get farming
preservation money perhaps, they look at a farm succession plan
as part of the criteria and give extra points for that. Then
you know that the family has actively planned for it to go to
the next generation. And it doesn't necessarily need to be to a
family member, but just to another Farmer.
The Chariman. OK. That would be a factor that would fit
there. That is a more measurable or fixed concept, that it just
stays in agriculture. Let me ask this question of you, because
of the value of land and even with conservation easements
acquired--and you said it well, Mr. Beam, the selling of
development rights. That is another term to be used here. But
still anticipating the land would stay in agriculture, is there
any consideration or is there any value or requirement placed
in the criteria that would suggest that in transition the lands
sell for a value minus those rights that were acquired?
If I am out there looking for farmland and I am looking at
land that the development rights have been sold off from, can I
expect a different market value than those that might not be?
What has been your experience here in the transition, let's say
out of family but to another farmer? Can anyone react to that?
Have we changed the character of the marketing of that
property?
Mr. Beam. It has been an our area that it is amazing how
much the farmers are willing to pay because they are selling
farms there that have been reserved now for $4,000 and $5,000
an acre. And developers come in there, you know. They are
mostly paying about $10,000 now. But I was surprised, because
they had told us, the mortgage companies and everybody, because
when they finance a farm that has these rights sold off, which
is their option--if the farmer can't make it, that they can
unload--that they were selling quite that high, but that is
what it has been.
The Chariman. Still selling. OK.
Mr. Beam. And there is plenty of demand. And there is one
point that I don't think was brought up yet, and that is every
time there is a farm sold in the community, it is just another
vote for all them service businesses in that area to put him
out of business or close his doors, because we need that guy
that hauls the milk. We need that guys that sells the tires. We
need that machinery dealer down there when something goes bad.
And every time this farmer gets less, his business is dropping
off, and therefore it is just another vote. So, this thing
ripples out over the communities a lot more than a lot of
people think.
The Chairman. That is well-spoken. It is very true. Most
small agricultural communities have experienced that as the
character of agricultural was changed. Well, once again let me
thank all of our panelists for being with us today, taking time
to help us build a record on this issue. I think that really it
is a work in progress, and I say that based on the experiences
you have all had, obviously having a State that has led on this
issue has been, by all appearances, extremely valuable. And, as
Rick has said, it has had an influence on the Federal policy,
without question.
At the same time, as we tend to develop this and my guess
is we will, as its popularity grows, as its understanding grows
to preserve and maintain, we will have even greater pressure
put on us at the Federal level to not only increase the
funding, but adjust the program, in part, as you suggested,
Marion, to measure at least in determining other values. But,
again, thank you all very much for coming before the Committee.
My guess is we are out of time and something about me
having to catch a train, but the crowd doesn't appear to be
surging out there at the moment for access to microphones. So,
with that, I will adjourn the Subcommittee.
[Whereupon, at 12:01 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
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A P P E N D I X
September 18, 2000
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