State, local officials discuss agriculture land preservation

PAYSON — South Utah County is home to thousands of acres of orchards and farms, some going back more than a century. One of the biggest threats to this breadbasket is encroachment from developers, as cities continue to grow and folks buy up small acre ranchettes, where they can get away from the hustle of the city and create their own piece of paradise.

Yet, if southern Utah County farmland is going to be protected, residents must get involved, Utah Department of Agriculture and Food Commissioner Leonard Blackham said recently.

State and local officials gathered in an orchard last month to discuss encroachment onto prime agricultural lands. No members of the news media were invited.

However, Blackham said he didn't know if further action was in the immediate future.

"It's a local issue and needs to be driven locally," he said. "It needs to be more grass roots. If the people want to preserve agricultural land, they need to let their public officials know."

Former mayor Russell Hillman said he was "trying to get the grass roots (effort) going."

A state agricultural department brochure says that "every minute of every day, we lose two acres of farm and ranchland to development." Between 2003 and 2008, Utah lost 500,000 acres of agricultural lands to development.

One of the tools not used much in Utah is residential clustering, which places homes in a group, leaving agricultural lands open, much in the way that Utah was originally settled. Small, 20-acre farms cannot be as productive as larger spreads, Blackham said.

Conservation easements are another tool, but they take money to accomplish, said Blackham, who is a Sanpete County turkey farmer.

Rep. Jack Draxler, R-North Logan, tried and failed in the last legislative session to provide incentives that would have funded the easements to maintain agricultural lands, while keeping Utah's farmers and ranchers in business.

Draxler's bill, which Blackham supported, proposed to take "rollback taxes," which go into a county's general fund, for discretionary use and put them into a newly created fund to allow conservation easements. The land would stay in agricultural production even as it is bought and sold.

According to the proposal, farmland would be taxed at a lower rate on "productive capability" instead of its market value. If the land is ever developed, then the owners must pay the difference in those taxes, going back five years in "rollback taxes."

Blackham predicts that Utah's food industry won't survive another 20 or 30 years unless something is done to preserve its farmland. The challenges are great, he said, which means locals must be involved.

"That's what it's going to take — it's not going to be department of ag driven," Blackham said.

e-mail: rodger@desnews.com