President’s Message
Farms feed us and provide a host of other public benefits. However, every day, the amount of fertile farmland diminishes as development spreads and as farmland is being attacked on many different levels and for us here in Summit County, it is now being targeted with unreasonable storm/surface water tax plans from our county Engineer.
CAUV registered farms here in Summit County Ohio, are under attack by the Summit County Engineer with a Surface Water Tax. Currently Bath Twp., here in Summit County, has adopted and imposed this new tax, which places CAUV registered farms/agricultural lands in the same category as commercial and industrial properties. The Summit County Farm Bureau has established a committee and is working with the Summit County Council, its representatives and the Engineers Office to remove farms/agricultural lands from the commercial and industrial category and have requested that farms/agricultural lands be placed in the same category as residential properties. Farms and Agricultural Lands are absorbers, retainers and soil reservoirs of rain and storm water and generally have only 1% to 2% impervious surfaces compared to their total property acreage. Most residential properties on the other hand, here in Summit County, generally have 20% to 35% impervious surfaces compared to their total property acreage. Farms and agricultural lands are doing more than their share of retaining and absorbing water, while the typical residential properties are creating excess storm/surface water run-off. The current residential rate for the surface/storm water tax here in Summit County is $48 per year when compared to a small 26 acre farm with approximately 2% impervious surface is paying a surface/storm water tax of approximately $1000 per year because it is lumped in the same category as commercial and industrial properties. The City of Lima and the Lorain County Storm Water Plan have both recognized the benefits of farmland, and have categorized or placed farms/agricultural lands in the same category as residential properties. Farms and agricultural lands provide a host of economic, environmental, and socio-cultural benefits that need to be recognized and understood. The following information highlights some benefits that are seldom recognized and solely contributed to communities by farms and agricultural lands.
In recent decades, residential and commercial development has decimated America’s agricultural lands. Nationwide, 24 million acres of farmland were lost between 1982 and 2012. It takes natural forces millennia to build richly productive soils however bulldozers can destroy fertile farmland in minutes.
If the United States retains its best farm soils—if it refrains from building over its most productive farm lands, If it keeps sufficient capacity to feed its growing population—the possibility diminishes of shortages, conflicts, and crises that could result in untold human tragedy.
This logic extends to the state and local level: if regions within America can develop their own robust agricultural systems, they are less likely to be damaged by turmoil elsewhere.
National security requires fertile farmland—lots of it. Farmland preservation helps ensure this is possible.
The economic impact of agriculture on Ohio and the nation is enormous. The output of America’s farms accounts for $177 billion of the GDP; combined with agriculture-related industries, the total is nearly $1 trillion. The reach of this impact is broad: Farms play a critical role in the economic lives of their employees, customers, and communities. They provide a variety of direct and indirect economic benefits, especially when compared to the alternative types of land use currently threatening productive farmland.
A Michigan State University study found that the employment multiplier for the agriculture industry was 1.668, meaning that for every 1,000 full-time jobs in/on-farm production there were on average 668 jobs in industries that supply or assist farms. The larger data further emphasizes this relationship between farms and jobs, in America there are 17 million jobs tied to agriculture.
A growing number of farms—nearly 150,000 nationwide, according to the 2012 USDA census—offer food products to their local communities through farmers markets, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs, farm stands, and other channels. The shorter the distance between the farmer’s field and the customer’s plate, the less transportation and fewer intermediaries required. Therefore, a local food transaction benefits both the farmer and consumer, the farmer receives a greater percentage of the sale, while the consumer enjoys fresh food produced for its taste rather than its ability to endure weeks of transportation and storage. The money spent in the community stays in the community, circulating to other businesses that offer goods and services and create jobs. One study concluded that agricultural exports generate $1.70 of community income for every dollar of sales, while local sales can generate over $3.00. Farmers markets, especially when located in a downtown area, can also have a spillover effect, boosting the sales of surrounding businesses.
Markets for locally produced food help sustain local economies, while enhancing opportunities for farmers to make a living and for consumers to buy fresh food directly from the people who produce it.
Only by considering both the local tax revenues generated by a land use and the local government expenditures necessitated by that land use can you identify the use’s overall impact on local government finances. Farms and other open lands unambiguously provide a net fiscal benefit. Owners of agricultural lands pay more in local taxes than government spends in support of those lands and the people who live and work on them.
Although agricultural land generates less tax revenue per acre than residential, commercial, or industrial property, it requires fewer public services such as schooling, road maintenance, and policing. The difference means that non-agricultural lands receive more services and pay less in taxes than they could in the absence of agricultural land.
According to Cost of Community Service Studies by American Farmland Trust, agricultural lands on average receive only $0.37 in public services for every dollar they contribute; housing developments, on the other hand, receive $1.16 in services for every dollar they contribute. Agriculture subsidizes the costs of residential development.
The natural beauty of farmland appeals to many people. Agricultural-based tourism (known as agritourism) offers people a chance to interact with farmland in a variety of ways; they might pick their own fruits/berries/vegetables in the summer, take a tour of a vineyard, or hold their wedding in a bucolic farm setting. This tourism provides income to the farmer, and has ancillary benefits for the community such as hotels, restaurants, stores, shops and other local attractions and venues.
Ecosystem goods and services are the benefits people derive from ecosystems: clean air, drinkable water, stable weather patterns, fertile soil, and flood protection. There is financial value in healthy ecosystems because society relies heavily upon the goods and services they provide, and farmland is more effective than commercial and residential developments in supporting these ecosystems.
In the popular imagination, farming is synonymous with rural life in America. That perception isn’t far from reality. Agriculture has occupied a prominent place in this country’s history since its inception; Thomas Jefferson—a farmer himself—wrote that “cultivators of the Earth are the most virtuous and independent citizens” and envisioned an entire nation of farmers growing food on their own plots of land. In the centuries since, however, Jefferson’s vision has not come to fruition. In 1900, there were 6 million farms and agriculture employed 41% of the American workforce; in 2015, there were 2 million farms and only 1% of people worked in farming.
Despite the fact that most people are now disconnected from agriculture, farming remains a primary element of rural heritage in the United States. This is due in large part to the economic ties between farms and communities, but it is also a result of the multi-generational nature of family farms, which encourage the establishment of deep connections to land and place. The relationship between farms and other pillars of rural culture—clubs like 4 H and FFA, seasonal celebrations like fall harvest festivals and community events like tractor pulls, county fairs and rodeos—are important as well.
Farms are the lifeblood of this cultural lineage, places where history and knowledge converge. As the stewards of these places, farmers can be tremendous teachers, passing along a wealth of valuable skills and advice. Those who benefit most from their experience and insight are future farmers—people considering farming as a career choice, or who are eager to begin but lack the necessary skills, land or money to start their own operations. With the number of beginning farmers in America down 23% and the average age of farmers at nearly 60, preserving farms as gateways into the profession has never been more crucial. As farmland disappears, so do the chances to educate the next generation of farmers.
Farms and farmers link Americans to a collective past, to a time when more people lived closer to the land and followed the contours of the seasons. As the world plunges into the new millennium and technology drives a modern, industrialized society where most people live in urban areas and work indoors, preserving this agricultural legacy is valuable. It is even more necessary for the rural communities that will see decades of traditions and long-standing cultural practices lost, if there is no land to farm and no farmers to farm it.
When land use planning aims to ensure the efficient use of space and resources, farmland can be protected while allowing room for communities to grow and thrive. Community planning and land use regulation offer tools that, depending on their specific design and the local political will, can protect farmland with varying degrees of efficacy. In regards of the Surface Water Management Tax, the SCFB is strongly encouraging the Summit County Council to categorize farms/agricultural lands in the same category as residential properties and that it not be inappropriately categorized with commercial and industrial properties.
Thank you for your support,
Timothy E. Walsh, P.E.
Summit County Farm Bureau President