Farmland preservation initiatives keep on in 2021 amid residential growth tension

GRAND RAPIDS, MI — By proportion, the populations in Kent and Ottawa counties have grown more than any many others in the condition in the past decade.

Throughout that time, between 2012 and 2017, Ottawa County dropped approximately 8% of its farmland acreage with Kent County remaining about the identical, according to the most latest United States Census of Agriculture. Both equally counties also observed some consolidation of scaled-down farms into more substantial types.

A single of the equipment the counties have been applying to overcome the decline of farmland to growth is a method to acquire the advancement rights of farms, preserving them as agricultural land in perpetuity.

Hunting ahead in 2021, the farmland preservation courses for the two West Michigan counties plan to keep on their pace of preserving about one particular farm a 12 months. The rate is limited by the sum of out there condition and federal grant dollars.

Ottawa County is slated to protect two farms totaling 160 acres following yr, and Kent County is established to shut on a 67-acre farm.

Ottawa County’s software, recognized in 2008, so considerably has preserved about 406 of the county’s 172,000 acres of farmland. The to start with progress legal rights acquired by way of the application transpired in 2016.

Kent County’s plan has preserved about 3,000 of the county’s 157,000 acres of farmland considering the fact that it was recognized in 2002, in accordance to county officials. The county started the program with an ambitious goal of preserving 25,000 acres of farmland by 2015.

The packages utilize federal and point out grant cash, as properly as donations, to acquire the development legal rights of a home. The application is voluntary and doesn’t use local tax dollars.

Very last year, Ottawa County procured improvement rights valued at $585,000 on a 168-acre farm in Chester Township. The county also procured rights valued at $407,389 on a 147-acre farm in Wright and Chester townships in 2020.

Farmers keep ownership of their land and other involved legal rights, but are paid out a lump sum for the placement of a conservation easement on the home that restricts land use for agricultural applications, forever blocking alternate sorts of growth.

Relevant: Ottawa County completely preserves one more 168 acres of farmland

The problem of farmland loss is a single that hits household for men and women, explained Becky Huttenga, the county’s financial enhancement coordinator. Farming is portion of the county’s heritage, she explained, and a person of its a lot more precious natural resources.

“People drive on their way to get the job done or anywhere and they glimpse at land that used to be a farm and now it’s a cul-de-sac,” Huttenga reported. “It concerns folks. I think people have a serious concern about the loss of farmland.”

In a 2019 survey of agricultural landowners in Ottawa County, about 82% of the 408 respondents said farmland decline is or could be a challenge in the county.

The majority ended up in settlement the menace of farmland loss is due to urban/suburban sprawl and raising populace in the county.

Relevant: Survey: City sprawl, population boosts threaten farmland

Huttenga, as perfectly as her Kent County counterpart, Agricultural Preservation Specialist Matthew Channing, say the purpose isn’t to halt progress but to deliver a equilibrium.

Channing spoke about scorching housing marketplaces in the secondary ring all-around the Grand Rapids metro place, in townships like Alpine and Cascade where by growth is having around areas that were being farmland in modern many years.

“Those types of areas are where by we’re looking at growth strain,” he stated. “That does not essentially suggest that we require to draw a line in the sand and preserve farmland there. The target is balance.”

Huttenga’s office is operating to make a countywide potential land-use eyesight more than the next couple of years that will evaluate a variety of elements to improved guide preservation and improvement initiatives.

“(With that prepare) we can seem across township jurisdictional boundaries and appear at soil varieties, search at infrastructure, search at existing land use, upcoming land use, transportation requires and search at the complete image and decide where by is it finest to preserve farmland and where is it best to develop,” she explained. “It’s tricky to do that without the need of taking the whole detailed photograph all at when. If not, we’re doing it just a minor bit piecemeal.”

Past the risk of improvement and sprawl, agricultural land house owners in Ottawa County’s 2019 survey also expressed that farmland is threatened by a absence of heirs and new farmers to get more than for retiring farmers, as effectively as the volatility of the farm financial state.

Channing reported the improvement rights obtaining system will help reduce the barrier for new farmers for the reason that it presents them a chance to purchase home off retiring farmers in the method who can’t sell to builders.

“It’s no magic formula that the age of the typical farmer is growing,” he explained. “As time marches on, there are significantly less young folks ready to break into the field, so you would see farms convert more than to progress — significantly, in this region, enhancement in the form of reduced-density housing.”

Huttenga said Ottawa County is in the early levels of developing techniques to assistance beginning farmers, like support with land transition designs, generating methods recognised and commonly out there and quite possibly owning mentoring groups the place farmers can pass on their institutional know-how to inexperienced persons.

“We’re making an attempt to just get every person at the exact desk and go, ‘What are the most critical things we can tackle for starting farmers wherever we can have a big effects?’” she stated.

Yet another way the county is hunting to enable farmers, Huttenga reported, is by bringing broadband internet access to farmers. About 15% of farms in the county really do not have enough entry to broadband.

“If you took any other field, health-related or production, and another person explained, ‘Well 15% of these producing companies do not have online,’ individuals would be appalled by that,” she said. “Every farmer demands decent access to broadband.”

The county is at the moment in the early phases of addressing people connectivity gaps. This thirty day period, county officials began trying to find bids bids from firms to acquire knowledge facts and assess broadband requires in the county.

These fascinated in finding out additional about the Ottawa County’s farmland preservation system can visit miOttawa.org/farmland. Fascinated events can also electronic mail the county at [email protected] or contact at 616-738-4852.

Those people intrigued in finding out far more about the Kent County’s farmland preservation method can stop by accesskent.com/Departments/BOC/PDR/. Interested farmers can also electronic mail Channing at [email protected] or contact at 616-632-7593

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