City sprawl threatens farming’s existence By Susan Loth my granddad’s tarm, and my National Geographic News Service great-granddad’s before that. You WASHINGTON, DC “It was want to see the old family farm? Signs of city life aren't far away as Willard “Dick" Forman, 73, plows his eight acres in Clive, lowa, west ol Des Moines. A national study has found that the country is losing a million acres a year of its best farmland to urban uses. - Go look at the shopping center and the townhouse projects around it. In the middle you’ll fmd what’s left: 1 guess Mother has around five acres.” Wallace Covington Jr. still lives and works in Fairfax County, Va., but the 200 acres where he raises cattle are in the country down the road—the road that takes him farther from Washington, D.C.’s urban sprawl. Elsewhere in Fairfax County, homesites are for sale at the 823- acre Franklin Farm. The J.B. Franklins have sold their dairy farm, and the Maryland and Virginia Milk Producers Association Inc. soon will lose one more nearby source. “Twenty years ago, there were 60 dairy farms ur Fairfax,” said Robert H. Rawlins of the milk co op. “Now we have five.” As a result, he noted, the co-op is trucking in milk from farms once thought too distant to be economical. This loss of farmland affects more than the Covington family tradition or -the price of milk m Washington. It’s happening across the country, and it’s something to worry about, a federal study has warned. As the country builds up and out from its cities, farmland is disappearing at the rate of 3 million acres every year, ac cording to the National Agricultural Lands Study releasd by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and other government agencies.. The annual loss includes 1 million acres of prune farmland, with the richest, flattest soils that produce the best yields at the lowest cost. But prune farmland is also attractive for other uses. Each day, four square miles of America’s best farmland are covered over—by housing tracts, highways, airports, businesses, parking lots or man-made lakes, the NALS says. Put together, a year’s loss could form a corridor from New York to California half a mile wide. “I think the important thing Americans should be learning is that our good farmland in this country has a limit,” said Robert Gray, who directed the NALS project and now is with the American Farmland Trust. "We have 540 million acres of pretty good farmland out of a land base of have farmers talking. “/ like the Star-trac unloader It works excellent in haylage It's tdtally reliable The unloading capacity is tremendous In 3Vzyears, I haven't spent any money on repairs " Walter Pownall—Quarryvllle, PA Compare the Star-Trac ring drive silo unloader, advantage for advantage, with any other unloader You'll see why it has farmers talking It has eighteen of the most advanced features ever wrapped up into one silo unloader And that means you get strong, quiet, big-capacity silage and haylage unloading for quick and easy feedings And, Star-Trac has the exclusive offset tri-arms that lift it high above the silo collar, leaving lots of extra room for more storage To learn all the reasons why Star-Trac has all the farmers talking, call your Chromalloy Farm Systems or Starline dealer CHROMALLOY SYSTEMS, MIC. Call or write your Chromalloy Farm Systems—Madison Silos branch for full details about the Star-Trac Ring Drive Silo Unloader. Chromalloy Farm Systems, Inc.—Madison Silos EPHRATA BRANCH 1070 Steinmetz Rd., Ephrata, PA. 17522 (717) 733-1206 01981 Chromalloy American Corp Lancaster Farming, Saturday, July 18,1981—C25 2.2 billion acres, and that 540 million acres is our ace in the hole.” The study recommends the country add to the 413 million acres now in cropland, and it has iden tified 127 million acres of good potential cropland now mainly in forest, pasture, or rangeland. In fact, the NALS estimates that to keep up with expected world food demand by the year 2000, U.S. farmers may have to cultivate an extra 85 to 140 million acres. Already the yield of one in every three acres harvested is shipped overseas, giving agricultural exports—some $4O billion worth in 1980—a big role in the national balance of trade. In the meantime, the land losses continue. The NALS says that if farmland conversion continues at .the 1967-77 rate, Florida—producer of half the world’s grapefruit and one-fourth the world’s oranges— will lose nearly all its important farmland by the end of the century. Another Sun Belt state, California, would lose 15 percent of its agricultural lands. Noting that citrus fruit, like many crops, depends on special (Turn to Page C 26) 'The Star-tree unloader handles haylage as easily as corn silage We like the simplicity and reliability of operation It was one of the best invest ments we've ever made on the farm ” Dale Vaughn—Delta, PA
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