Everyone agrees that farmland
a precious natural resource and
lat it must be preserved, and
lat s about as far as the
'reement goes. From there we
;e off in all directions trying to
■vise methods for farmland
•eservation that will save the
ind and not bother anybody
So tar, we’ve been totally un
iccessful
If you look back in US
Ticultural history only two
•ed years, you find fewer than
* million settlers scratching out
living on a rough, rocky New
ngland farms while the nation’s
ist plains and productive deltas
ij idle Preserving farmland
isn t a consideration since the
ettled area extended westward an
et age of only 255 miles
During those years settlers
--re creating farmland with their
mds and horsepower and what
imple tools were available They
’re pulling stumps, moving
icks, turning the tough virgin sod,
id otherwise making farms
Gradually the settlers pushed
istward, setting up farms as thej
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MARTIN OISTfIIBUTORS, INC.
520 Prescott Rd., Lebanon, PA 17042
I PHONE: 717-866-4906
or 717-866-4555
Farm
Talk
Jerry Webb
went, until some time m the 1800’s
when most usable land had been
claimed But even then the nation’s
agricultural base was expanding
as more acres came under the
plow through land clearing,
drainage, irrigation, and othei
techniques that permitted farmers
to fill otherwise idle acres
There was still plenty of room for
agricultural expansion, and there
was certainly no shortage of food
And so American agriculture
entered the 20th Century in what is
described by many historians as
the golden age of agriculture -
productive family farms,
favorable farm prices and a way of
life that is still considered by many
to be how agriculture should be
Three-quarters of a century and
many millions of people later,
farmers are still expanding their
acres But they re fighting a losing
battle
In the meantime, they sold their
horses, making more grassland
available to the plow They con
centrated livestock into pens and
buildings, freeing up more acres.
They continued to clear and dram
This Summer!
and irrigate, making even more
acres available.
While all that was going on, other
forces were at work - highway
nlanners. urban developers, land
speculators and home builders, ail
of them seeking land for nontarm
use
At firsi it wasn’t a big deal - a
few acres here, a few acres there
as a city grew - a few more acres to
ut'ild a turnpike or a parking lot It
didn l leally matter because there
was plenty of land.
But like so many of our precious
resources, our supply of available
agricultural land is running out It
won’t happen today or tomorrow
and perhaps not in our lifetimes,
but at the present rate of loss, it
will happen
We will reach a point where
America can no longer produce
enough food to take care of its own
people, and then we will be
dependent on some other nation for
our most basic need.
That doesn’t have to happen, but
it will unless somebody on a
national level decides that far
mland is truly a precious natural
resource that must be preserved
above all else
It’s easy for the planners of the
future to plot their urban sprawl
and highway systems, and to
concern themselves with the wants
and needs of 200 million people in
the vast megalopolises that will
evolve But where are they going to
get their food ;
Already there are states that are
net importers of food That is to
say, they consume more
agricultural goods than they
produce That has to be a concern
A state boundary is not that
critical, but the concept is When a
state has allowed its urban
pressures to overwhelm its
agricultural productivity, it has a
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INFORMATION & PRICES
ON THE FOLLOWING
ITEMS
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problem
A state that through the years
has valued nonfarm development
at the expense of farmland but now
fmds itself a food importer, has to
question the wisdom of what
happened, because onh a few
hundred years ago there were no
urban states There weren’t even
agricultural states They were just
parts of a vast wilderness until
early settlers decided to call them
states and stake out boundaries
and make laws that permitted or
encouraged or failed to control
urban development
Obviously, it’s too late to reverse
the urbanization of states uke New'
Jersey, Massachusetts, Con
necticut and Rhode Island, but it’s
not too late to save the rest This
nation still has excess farm
capacity as one acre in four
produces for a foreign consumer
Perhaps an abundant food supply
has lulled consumers into the false
thinking that our agricultural
capacity will always stay ahead of
our needs
Senator pushes plan
to boost farm exports
WASHINGTON, DC- Senator
Roger Jepsen of lowa is pushing
for Congress to take the first step
toward a significant boost in U S
farm exports
’The future of our agricultural
economy and our economy in
general rests heavily on our
success in the world market
place,” Jepsen said ’This is
especially important today when
the United States is suffering from
a large balance of trade deficit ”
The hill would set up the
framework for a revolving credit
fund within the Community Credit
Corporation to finance agricultural
export ventures The revolving
fund would allow one of the CCC’s
most successful programs to
recycle its loan money, rather than
paying it back to the Treasury and
then having to request a yearly
appropriation.
However, because of the budget
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We used to produce as much oil
' as we needed, and that was only a
few years ago We used to produce
as much of a lot of things as we
needed and now we import from
around the world We still produce
more food than we need and we
should keep it that way through a
comprehensive, national plan that
stabilizes our agricultural base at
a pre-determined level and holds it
there forever
We really have no choice in the
matter but to preserve
agricultural land somewhere down
the line We either do it now when
it’s already overdue or we do it
later when it will be too late
It’s time for the American
people, farm and nonfarm alike, to
recognize the importance of the
nation’s agricultural base and the
dire consequences if it fails to
maintain that base
I don’t think we can wait until we
are a food importing nation to start
some kind of national land
preservation program
crunch, Jepsen said he will not
request money for the fund at this
tune
■ This export loan program has
proven itself over the past 25
years, consistently returning more
money to the Treasury than it
receives
Currently, agricultural products
account for more than 20 percent of
total American exports. However,
little has been done to implement
the energetic financing provisions
of the two year-old Agricultural
Trade Act
"There is strong evidence that
limitations in the current export
financing program have cost the
U.S. export sales to a number of
countries,” Jepsen said "A
revolving fund will provide a
flexibility which is consistent with
our aggressive agricultural export
policy.”
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Phone: 717-397-5152
ram: