An op-ed in the San Antonio Express-News warns that “asphalt is the last crop,” meaning once a farm is paved over, it can never be farmed again. “Every 10 years, Texas loses approximately 1 million acres of prime agricultural lands to development,” the article warns. Written by Bob McCan, who chairs the Texas Agricultural Land Trust, the article encourages farmers and ranchers to put their lands into conservation easements.
In case McCan hasn’t noticed, someone should tell him Texas is a big place. According to the USDA National Resources Inventory, it has nearly 138 million acres of private agricultural land, not counting 14 million acres of forest land, 3 million acres of federal land, and more than 2 million acres of “other rural land.” Fewer than 7 million acres of the state have been urbanized and only about 2 million more have been developed into such things as small settlements, rural roads, and railroads.
Of the 138 million acres of ag land, farmers grow crops on only about 24 million acres. The rest is range and pastureland. That 24 million is less than it was a few decades ago, but more because the per-acre yields of most crops are growing faster than the nation’s population than because any acres have been paved over.
Land may even be less important to crop production in the future. The United States devotes more than 400,000 acres to growing tomatoes, on which per-acre yields have more than tripled since 1960. Yet hydroponic farms could grow all of those tomatoes on less than 25,000 acres (assuming yields of 32 pounds per square foot).
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In short, Texas and the United States have a huge surplus of agricultural lands. Farmers who put their land into a conservation easement get a tax break, but they lose the right to develop their land in the future. That could be bad for them, but it could also be bad for society as a whole if that land is needed for other purposes. This isn’t a problem in Texas — yet — but it has proven to be a problem in Boulder, Jackson, and other places where governments and non-profits have bought land or easements on most of the available land in the area.
An alternative to easements is the conservation reserve program, which pays farmers to not grow crops on certain acres or to dedicate those acres to plantings that are important to migratory birds and other wildlife. Unlike easements, this is reversible and it actually contributes more to conservation that keeping lands in monocultural crop production.
But McCan’s group is focused on promoting easements, not conservation. To carry out this mission, it received $4.25 million in grants and contributions in 2016 and pays its CEO more than $115,000 a year. In order to generate that kind of revenue, it creates an illusion of a crisis where no such crisis exists and puts valuable resources into so-called conservation projects that don’t really conserve anything. The nation would be better off if the IRS stopped giving people tax breaks for conservation easements and even better off if some smart lawyers figure out a way to let people revoke conservation easements when their land became more valuable for other uses.
Everything is bigger in Texas, even the asphalt. THe westward expansion wasn’t Manifest destiny it was the fact there was NO timber in the central US. Arbor Day was founded in Nebraska because they needed trees for wood and fuel.
But the same philosophy of the timberman of the 1800’s even as they gazed at the ginormous trees of the Northwest was the same philosophy of the 1600’s,1700s………..it’ll never run out.
Actually, we have far more forests today than we did a hundred years ago. For that matter, we have more lands available for crop production.
Thank Henry Ford for that. His Model T (and Fordson tractors) allowed farmers to substitute machines for horses and oxen. This released something like 200 million acres of pastureland for other uses.
A little more than half became forests. The rest became croplands. Meanwhile, “urban sprawl” covers less than 100 million acres. So the automobile (and tractor) has produced a net increase in croplands and forests.
I agree, but what if the best cropland is the land closest to the developed area? In Vancouver, BC, for example, most people would say the most productive farmland is in the same area where new suburban development would occur.
I’m sure there’s plenty of woods in texas but don’t call em forests. A forest isn’t just a bunch of trees. A forest is an ecosystem, visually characterized by trees. But there’s more to it than that. The microorganisms that live under the soil are as important than the trees that tower above it.
“A forest is an ecosystem, visually characterized by trees.”
That is the most retarded thing I’ve read today.
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I agree, but what if the best cropland is the land closest to the developed area? In Vancouver, BC, for example, most people would say the most productive farmland is in the same area where new suburban development would occur.
” ~ Transitboy
Best cropland? Maybe. Is farming the best overall use of that land? No. Not just because of the wisdom of the crowds ( aka pricing ) in that all the other aspects of British Columbia’s economy is dead last. It’s the smallest sector of the economy.
In fact Vancouver alone accounts for 45% of BC’s economy. If the thinking that something must stop to not impede the production of actual food, then BC should stop growing grapes to turn into wine and grow apples to eat instead, eh?
As for McCann he’s being disingenuous. The land trends study he cites is clear that in about the last 30 years, Texas’ population has grown by 36% and the number of ranches and farms has __GROWN___ by 9%. Why? Because 90% of Texas’ population grown is occurring in less than 10% of the counties in Texas.
By the way, a 9% increase is huge. For example from 1950 to 1960, the number of farms and ranches shrank from 345,000 to 247,000. Texas ranchers and farmers have a long history of having to choose between selling out and continuing to eek by somehow. Mr. McCann “conveniently” uses it and paints it as though it’s about selling out to developers. That’s part of it, but historically that’s a damn lucky problem for them to have. Usually the selling out occurs cuz they’ve gone bust, not made enough to retire on. But you know how the idealiogues are. They won’t let a victory be anything other than painted as a defeat.
It is clear to the unbiased that this is a shift in the landscape in Texas but definitely not a threat to the cast majority of the farm land in the state.
An op-ed in the San Antonio Express-News warns that “asphalt is the last crop,” meaning once a farm is paved over, it can never be farmed again.
Could have fooled Detroit.
transitboy said, “what if the best cropland is the land closest to the developed area?”
That’s what transportation is for, and transportation costs are low. It can easily be less expensive to move things across the country or around the world than to try to grow them locally.
The other issue with this is that it assumes that development will be nothing more than subdivisions, strip malls and apartments. Whereas you could just divide for instance a 1,000 acre parcel into 20 acre lots for people to have smaller farms or businesses etc. Ironically when you look at rural areas that are doing well especially those with a lot of niche, farms, ranches and forestry operations, they are on these smaller lots. Whereas places that prevent this, like eastern Oregon, have effectively strangled them sleves out of existence.