Subject: National Agriculture Week Finds Nation's Farmland Under Siege

From: "nigel allen" <[email-masked]>
Date: 11 Mar 93 19:24:16 EST

Here is a press release from the American Farmland Trust.

 National Agriculture Week Finds Nation's Farmland Under Siege
 To: National Desk, Agriculture Writer
 Contact: Gary Kozel of the American Farmland Trust, 202-659-5170

   WASHINGTON, March 11  -- As the nation celebrates
National Agriculture Week from March 14 to March 20, the very
resource that supports U.S. agriculture and its bounty of food and
fiber will continue to be destroyed.
   Over the seven-day period, American Farmland Trust reports some
42,300 acres of productive farmland will give way to development and
urban sprawl.  That's 6,000 acres of farmland a day, 251 acres a
minute or four acres a second.
   According to AFT, a national farmland conservation group based in
Washington, much of the loss will be prime farmland, which yields the
most food at the lowest production cost and least environmental
impact.  A good percentage will be concentrated in or near the
cuntry's most urbanized and rapidly growing areas.
  AFT pointed specifically to the Chicago area where from 1970 to
1990 population grew by only four percent as urban land use increased
a startling 46 percent.
   "Our best farmland is being lost -- 150,000 acres every year in
Florida, 100,000 annually in California, and thousands more in many
of our coastal and Midwestern states," said AFT President Ralph E.
Grossi.  "The Soil Conservation Service, in fact, now estimates the
U.S. is losing between 2.2 and 2.5 million acres of productive
frmland every year.  As we honor the men and women in U.S.
agriculture, let us not overlook this very real threat to our
nation's farmland.  Clearly, something must be done to stop the loss
of our most important natural resource."
   Grossi called on federal policy-makers to consider ways to reform
American farm policy.  The U.S, he said, should eliminate or reduce
federal subsidies to development that consumes productive farmland
unnecessarily, shift farm program spending from costly
overproduction to resource conservation and deficit reduction,
implement the Farms for the Future Act and thereby reinforce state
and local farmland protection efforts and recognize the significance
of urban-influenced agriculture.
   "We must recognize that our farmland needs to be respected for
what it produces," said Grossi.  "Too often, agriculture is regarded
as what is done with land until some other use can be found.  That
attitude must change.  Farmland must have the same level of priority
and concern as other urban and suburban land uses."
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