Tag: american farmland trust

Corn Ethanol: More Water Pollution

  • Corn requires more fossil fuel-based nitrogen fertilizer than many other crops. Tanks of pressurized anhydrous ammonia fixes nitrogen in the soil, but heavy rains can wash nitrogen into waterways. (Photo by Lester Graham)

Government-funded programs that pay for
conservation on farmland have done a lot to
improve the environment over the past twenty
years. The federal government has paid farmers
to take some cropland and set it aside to protect
waterways and wildlife habitat. In the second of
our two-part series on ethanol, Julie Grant reports
that some of that conservation is being stalled:

Transcript

Government-funded programs that pay for
conservation on farmland have done a lot to
improve the environment over the past twenty
years. The federal government has paid farmers
to take some cropland and set it aside to protect
waterways and wildlife habitat. In the second of
our two-part series on ethanol, Julie Grant reports
that some of that conservation is being stalled:


A good hard rain can wash a lot of valuable soil off a farm field.
John Wallbrown grows corn and soybeans on his farm. He says losing
soil is just like losing money. The soil carries with it all the
nutrients he’s put in the fields to help the crops grow, things such as
nitrogen and phosphorous. Wallbrown says he’s put in a good number of
grass waterways through the fields to help filter the water and hold on
to that soil:


“And so when you put in a grass waterway, it dramatically reduces the
amount of erosion. And it is just better for the water supply, better
for our crop. We’re keeping our soil in our field as opposed to it
getting put away.”


What Wallbrown calls nutrients in the field are considered pollution
once they wash into rivers and lakes. So Wallbrown says planting grass
near waterways is good for everyone. Except it means he’s got to use
land that otherwise could be growing crops, and that’s a loss of
income.


Wallbrown has gotten various government assistance to offset those
losses. The largest program, is called the Conservation Reserve Program, known as the
CRP for short.


John Johnson is with the US Department of Agriculture. He says when
you add up all the farms like John Wallbrown’s around the country, the
CRP is making a huge difference in reducing agricultural runoff into
waterways:


“Over 450 million tons of topsoil annually are prevented from eroding
because of CRP. We’ve got lots of really good benchmarks and measurements of
success of CRP, in both water quality, soil erosion and wildlife
habitat.”


But that set-aside land is in demand these days. There’s been a huge
call for bio-fuels to help reduce American dependence on foreign oil.
Bio-fuels are made from crops such as soybeans and corn, especially
corn. So Johnson says the government has decided to stop enrolling
new farmland into the conservation program:


“The overriding concern was that there is a need for a larger supply of
corn and soybeans and wheat production right now, so given the need for
that production, let’s just take a pause right now from enrolling large
acreage of additional farmland into the CRP.”


Corn is used to make ethanol, a fuel that’s now commonly blended with
gasoline. That’s caused corn prices to nearly double so farmers say
they’re planting 12 million acres more corn this year than last year.
That’s the most corn grown in the US in more than 50 years.


Ralph Grossi, director of the American Farmland Trust, says corn needs a
lot more nitrogen fertilizer than other crops. And when it rains,
nitrogen moves quickly from the fields to the waterways. That’s
especially true when grass strips don’t filter the runoff.


Grossi says that nitrogen drains into creeks and rivers from 36 states
into the Mississippi River and eventually to the Gulf of Mexico. There
it causes huge algae blooms that then die, sink, and the decaying
matter causes low oxygen in the water called hypoxia. That’s why the
Corn Belt has been blamed for creating a huge dead zone in the Gulf of
Mexico each year:


“If you increase corn production and don’t add the conservation practices
it will add nutrients and exacerbate problems in the gulf with hypoxia.
But it’s not just in the gulf, it’s problems for every local water
district that has to purify water for drinking and other urban
purposes. As they have to contend with more nutrients, that increases
their costs of cleaning the water.”


Grossi says the best place to clean the water is at the source. He
says that’s why the government must continue to help farmers pay for
grass waterways and buffer strips – those things prevent farm nutrients
from getting into the water in the first place. He says the need for
grass waters is even greater now that so much farmland is being planted
in corn to meet the demand for more ethanol.


For the Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

Saving Farmland From Sprawl

  • DeKalb County, close to Chicago in Illinois, is facing rapid urban sprawl. (Photo by Lester Graham)

Some counties near big cities are trying to save farmland from being developed into sprawling suburbs. Lester Graham reports the problem is finding money to fund programs that would preserve the rural character of an area:

Transcript

Some counties near big cities are trying to save farmland from being developed into
sprawling suburbs. Lester Graham reports the problem is finding money to fund
programs that would preserve the rural character of an area:


The real value of land as farmland is a lot less than what a developer will pay for the land
to use it to build strip malls, big box retail stores, or subdivisions of wallboard mansions.
Farmers are tempted to sell when it means they’d make more money off the land selling it
to developers than they would farming for the rest of their lives, but many feel they’re forced into the situation. They don’t really want to give up life on
the farm. They just feel they’d be foolish to keep farming when they could make so much
money selling to a developer.


Some counties that want to preserve the rural character of their area are putting together a program
that helps farmers by paying them some of that difference between farmland value and
development value. It’s called the purchase of development rights.


Usually, local governments, sometimes state, pay farmers to waive that right to develop
the land forever. No one can build on it. The land has to be kept as open space.


There are lots of reasons state, county and city and township governments might want to
do that. Some politicians want to make sure their communities continue to be surrounded
by scenic green space. Some want to preserve the rural character of their community.
Some want to make sure they have a source for locally grown food.


Scott Everett is with the American Farmland Trust. He says it can come down to simple
economics. Some politicians like purchase of development rights for lower taxes:


“Because we won’t have to add public services. Cows don’t go to school. Chickens don’t
dial 9-1-1. Corn, wheat and soybeans need a lot less fire and police protection than
residential development.”


Everett says purchase of development rights is a long term plan and if a county sees its
farmland might be threatened in the future, it better get busy now:


“In an urban-influenced county, you know, there’s a county next door to a big
metropolitan area maybe like Chicago, one of the things that really ought to be happening
to counties that are next to that county is some planning needs to take place. It
takes a very long time for a purchase of development rights program to take ahold.”


We found a place that fits that description exactly. DeKalb County is on the fringes of
the Chicago metropolitan area. The counties between it and the city are seeing incredible
development pressures. Farmland is being gobbled up at a rate almost unparalleled in the
nation. DeKalb County is trying to draw a line that would stop urban sprawl and allow only
carefully planned growth.


Pat Vary is a DeKalb County board member. She’s watched as counties closer to
Chicago have gone from farmland to urban sprawl in almost no time. She doesn’t want that to happen to
DeKalb County and she says most of the towns don’t want that:


“Most of the municipalities have said, ‘We want to grow this far, but we want to keep
green space around us and we don’t want to go much further than that.’ There’s lots of
pressure from developers right now.”


Vary, who’s also a biologist, says as the population grows and farmland is lost, she sees a
moment in the future where land that produces food is going to be a lot more valuable
than it is today:


“I really think that in about thirty years, forty years from now, that an acre of farmland in
DeKalb County will be worth more than an acre of downtown Chicago. You can’t eat
buildings. You can’t eat pavement. People are going to need to eat. I really believe it’s
critical, it’s vital to do something fairly fast.”


But, as we heard earlier, it takes a while to get a purchase of development rights program
rolling. It has to be funded, usually from several levels of government, and then you
have to persuade farmers that dedicating their land to only growing crops is the right
thing to do.


Scott Everett with American Farmland Trust says successful purchase of
development rights start out slowly, but gain popularity after everyone sees how it works:


“It’s one of these programs where once one farmer does it, the other farmers next door
and the neighboring farmers really start taking a look at it and saying to themselves ‘You
know, if they’re going to make the commitment, I will, too.'”


But Everett warns, if your county is one of those urban-influenced counties, if a
purchase of development rights program isn’t put in place and funded soon, your
farmland will be gobbled up by gridlock, strip malls, and dotted with residential suburbs
that often cost the government more in infrastructure and additional services than the new
real estate taxes will ever pay for.


For the Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

Part 2: Selling the Right to Develop Farmland

  • Farm museums like this one are sometimes the only remnant of the agricultural life that has been overrun by development. However, some communities are buying farmers' development rights in an effort to save the rural landscape. (Photo by Lester Graham)

One way to keep farms from becoming subdivisions is to pay the farmers to never build on their land. This has been happening on the east and west coasts for decades. But it’s just now beginning to catch on in the Great Lakes region. In the second of a two part series on farmers and the decisions they make about their land, the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Peter Payette takes us to a place where local government is paying to keep land in agriculture:

Transcript

One way to keep farms from becoming subdivisions is to pay the farmers to never
build on their land. This has been happening on the east and west coasts for
decades. But it’s just now beginning to catch on in the Great Lakes region. In
the second of a two part series on farmers and the decisions they make about
their land, the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Peter Payette takes us to a place
where local government is paying to keep land in agriculture:


Whitney Lyon’s farm has been in his family for more than a century. He has 100
acres of cherry and apple trees. The orchards are on a peninsula that stretches
fourteen miles across a bay in Northern Lake Michigan. His farm is about a half
mile from the clear blue water that attracts thousands of tourists here every
year.


Lyon says real estate agents love his property.


“We run clean back to the bay on the north side… that’s view property. It’s
worth 30, 40,000 bucks an acre.”


But it’s not worth that much anymore. The rights to build houses on the Lyon farm have
been sold. The way this works is this: the Lyon’s keep the land, but they get paid
for the real estate value they give up to keep the land as a farm instead of house
sites.


(sound of apple picking)


There’s a thick fog across the peninsula today. Whitney Lyon is picking apples. His
wife Mary is inside watching kids. Mary says the day they sold the development
rights was the best day in their thirty years of farm life. She says she knew they’d
be able to stay on the land. And because of the money they made, she downsized her
daycare business.


“The big change, especially the last two or three years, I no longer just buy stuff
from just garage sales. I have actually been spending money on purchasing things for
the house. Which previously, everything came from garage sales.”


Many of the Lyon’s neighbors have sold their development rights as well. For ten
years, the township government has raised money to buy those rights with an additional
property tax. Almost no other community in the Midwest has a program like this. But,
if approved by voters, five more townships in this area might also start programs after
the November elections. Each township is separately asking voters to approve a property tax.


The American Farmland Trust has helped the townships design the program. The group is
excited because this would provide an example of local governments joining together to
protect farmland. Farmland Trust’s President Ralph Grossie flew in for a campaign event.
In a speech, Grossie told a crowd of about 100 people there’s a disconnect between farmers
and their communities. He says the community benefits from the farms while the farmers
struggle to make ends meet.


“We believe there is a middle ground here, there is a way to strike a deal between those
who manage our landscape – private farmers and ranchers, landowners – and those who
appreciate and benefit from that well-managed landscape. If you think about it, that’s
the heart of the property rights debate. Almost all those conflicts over property rights
are really about who pays for achieving a public goal on private land.”


Grossie says paying farmers with public money is the best option if a community wants to
keep farms. Otherwise, he says government forces farmers to pay when they give up profitable
uses of their land because of zoning laws. But a few in this crowd weren’t buying.


Some are opposed to more taxes on their homes or businesses so the township government can
write big checks to farmers. Others question if younger generations even want to farm.


(sound of noise from crowd)


And some are just plain suspicious of government. Roger Booth is talking to another
opponent of the propposal after the speech. Booth is explaining that when the right
to develop a piece of land is purchased, it’s gone forever. But he points out there
is one exception.


“Eminent domain. And who’s going to decide eminent domain has the right to take it? The
people in power of government at the time. Not today. Thirty years from now.”


Government also has an image problem because prominent local farmers often sit on the
town boards. It’s hard not to notice they could be the ones cashing in on the public treasury.
Critics also point out these programs tax farms to save farmland. And they say buying the
deveolopment rights does nothing to improve the business of farming. Supporters admit this
doesn’t guarantee future success for farms. But they say at least it gives the farmers a
chance to keep farming instead of selling to developers.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Peter Payette.

Related Links

Moviemaker Lampoons Sprawl

  • Characters in the upcoming film Barn Red. Ernest Borgnine plays a farmer, who's struggling to keep his 240-acre fruit farm in the face of development pressures.

People worried about land-use issues usually don’t laugh about them. But a Michigan filmmaker has made a romantic comedy about development pressures on America’s farmland. Director Rich Brauer hopes the humor of his movie “Barn Red” will make the issue more accessible for the general public. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Peter Payette reports:

Transcript

People worried about land-use issues usually don’t laugh about them. But a
Michigan filmmaker has made a romantic comedy about development pressures
on America’s farmland. Director Rich Brauer hopes the humor of his movie
“Barn Red” will make the issue more accessible for the general public. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Peter Payette reports:


You might call Micheal Bollini puzzled at the beginning of the movie, “Barn
Red.”


The old fruit farmer played by actor Ernest Borgnine is a picture of rugged self-
reliance. But he’s bewildered by the pressure he’s under to get out of farming.


“Did you ever get that feeling that you’re going too fast and you pass a police car
and he’s got his radar at you. That’s how I feel when they talk about selling the
farm and everything. It gives me butterflies in my stomach. Terrible.”


Bollini can’t comprehend developer Paul Haight, played by actor Wayne David
Parker. In their first meeting, Haight tells Bollini he figures Bollini has to sell his
farm. Haight wants to build a subdivision there called Oak Wind. In a
conversation with his assistant, Haight calls Bollini’s 240- acre family farm a
bonanza.


HAIGHT: “So you go in here, drive up this way, turn here and your home.”


ASSISTANT: “Oak Winds is a good name. Bollini has a ton of oaks up there.”


HAIGHT: “Actually we’ll cut those down and plant this… it’s a
juniperous…something. They grow faster and there’s no leaves, no messy yards,
no leaves to clean up. So they’re perfect, no lousy squirrels.”


He goes onto say they’ll plant purple loosestrife for ground cover in Oak Wind.
Purple loosestrife is an invasive species that chokes out other the naturally
occurring plants.


Haight can’t figure out why loosestrife is so cheap.


A lot of the humor in “Barn Red” lampoons characters with their own lack of
understanding.


Bollini, the farmer, doesn’t open letters from the IRS that say he owes hundreds
of thousand of dollars in estate taxes.


Haight, The developer, gets poison ivy while trespassing on Bollini’s property.


In this scene a woman notices him scratching himself.


WOMAN: “Look’s like a pretty nasty rash you got there.”


HAIGHT: “I don’t know what the heck it is. I’m doing all I can not to scratch it,
but it seems to be spreading.”


WOMAN: “Looks like poison ivy to me. Good thing you put that pink stuff on
it.”


HAIGHT: “Oh, yeah, I sure hope it clears it up. I don’t know where I could have
gotten it at.”


The Filmmaker, Rich Brauer, says he made his movie entertaining so people will
pay attention to an issue he cares about.


Brauer lives in a rural part of northern Michigan. The region is under as much
development pressure as just about any place in the Midwest.


And Brauer’s been involved with land-use issues for years. He says he didn’t
have to invent the antics of the developer from scratch. He just had to tell about
some of the things he’s seen.


“I’ve seen these guys and I thought they were kidding. But they weren’t. Therein
lies comedy. So all I did…I just sort of created a character that echoed what I
had experienced in real life…This isn’t just completely off of a blank sheet of
paper…I was inspired by reality.”


The developer isn’t the butt of every joke.


In one scene the township clerk gets out their master plan to show to a friend of
Bollinis. She tells how it cost the township 150 thousand dollars and then the
plan just sat on the shelf for last five years.


People unfamiliar with planning and zoning might miss the sarcasm here.


But Larry Mawby didn’t. Mawby owns a vineyard in the township where “Barn
Red” was filmed. He’s been involved in local government there for twenty years.
Mawby says the county put together a state-of-the-art master plan in the mid-90s.
Mawby says people came from other parts of the state to see what they had done.


“That master plan has been totally and completely ignored. The Board of
Commissioners doesn’t pay attention to that master plan at all. Where they’re
citing the jail is contrary to their master plan. None of their facilities questions
have they ever looked at that master plan or paid attention to it. It’s like, what’s
the point here?”


The point of laughing about it in a movie may be to get everybody to lighten up.


Glenn Chown is the executive director of the Grand Traverse Regional Land
Conservancy.


Brauer consulted with Chown while writing the script for his movie.


Chown thinks the levity of “Barn Red” will help the image of environmentalists.


“Sometimes we can be accused of being all gloom and doom. And the sky is
falling and it’s all falling apart and we’re all doomed. And I think we need to
lighten up a little bit. If we do lighten up a little bit, we’ll reach people more
effectively.


But… the film ends with a little gloom and doom.


Between the end of the movie and the credits a figure from the American
Farmland Trust appears on the screen. It says America loses more than 1.2
million acres of farmland to sprawl each year.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Peter Payette.

Related Links

Dairy Farmer Gives Cows a Winter Break

Most dairy farmers around the Great Lakes region milk their cows all year long. It brings in a steady paycheck and ensures a steady flow of milk to manufacturing plants. Now a small but growing number of farmers give their cows a break during the coldest months. It’s a technique called seasonal dairying. Its supporters say it’s gentler on the cows. It’s easier on the environment. And it gives small dairy farms a future in an industry that’s growing ever bigger. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein reports:

Transcript

Most dairy farmers around the Great Lakes region milk their cows all year long. It brings in a steady
paycheck and ensures a steady flow of milk to manufacturing plants. Now a small but growing
number of farmers give their cows a break during the coldest months. It’s a technique called seasonal
dairying. Its supporters say it’s gentler on the cows. It’s easier on the environment. And it gives
small dairy farms a future in an industry that’s growing ever bigger. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s David Sommerstein reports:


It’s a chilly winter day in the northern New York town of Denmark. Kevin Sullivan strides into
the barn where his 60 cows munch quietly on their day’s feed.


“In the winter we’re pretty much conventional farmers.”


On conventional farms, cows stay in the barn all year long. The farmer trucks hay and grain into
the barn to feed them. But Sullivan is a grazier. His cows munch on pasture grasses from April
to October. And when they’re inside for winter, he “dries the cows off” for a couple months.
That means they don’t give milk until they start calving in the spring. Sullivan says he first read
an article about what’s called “seasonal dairying” ten years ago.


“I started thinking about it then and I kinda ran it past my wife and she laughed at me and said
‘y’know it’ll never work.'”


The problem with the seasonal system is dairy farmers are used to relying on their monthly milk
check to pay bills. No milk, no check. That took some getting used to.


“The first year was kind of scary ’cause you don’t really have any income for a couple months in
the wintertime but after we made it through that first year, I knew it was going to work pretty
good.”


The reason it works is outside.


Sullivan zips up his jacket and walks out to the barnyard. Unlike most farms, there’s not much
mud, just acres of thick green grass peeking through a dusting of snow.


“Once you get a sod built up like this, you can bring out your cows, I mean, the cows could be out
here today and they’re not going to hurt this pasture at all.”


Grazing is the key to seasonal dairying. You time when your cows give birth to calves and
produce their best milk to coincide with spring and early summer. That’s when pastures grow
the most nutritious grass. Sullivan says it’s a cow’s natural cycle.


Cows were made to eat grass. A lot of people forgot about that, I guess. I would say the two biggest things that
harm a cow is grain and concrete and a lot of guys push grain and the cows are on concrete all
the while but by kicking the cows outside and letting them be on the sod and letting them eat the
grass, you can get rid of about 90% of your cow problems.


In the pasture, they’re less susceptible to foot diseases than cows in a muddy barnyard. And
because grazing cows roam many acres, their manure is spread naturally and fertilizes the land.
A grazing farm typically has less erosion, uses fewer pesticides, and is less polluting to nearby
creeks than a conventional farm, where cows are confined to a small area and the farmer has to
dispose of tons of manure.

The method is easier on the animals and the land. And often easier on the farmer’s wallet too. A
study by the American Farmland Trust finds seasonal dairying can be an economically viable
alternative to conventional farming, especially for small farms like Kevin Sullivan’s. But only one or two percent of farms in the U.S. are seasonal. Brian Petrucci directs the American Farmland
Trust’s farm division.


“At some point in the last twenty years, it was decided that the only way to farm in this country was to get big or
get out.”


Under the tutelage of Ag school extensions, farm herds have swelled from the hundreds to the
tens of thousands. State and federal environmental agencies have had to create new regulations to
contain all the waste the farms generate. At the same time, thousands of small farms have gone
out of business.


Petrucci says seasonal dairying can help reverse the trend. But it’s slow to catch on in part
because the agriculture industry – the companies that supply the farmers – often doesn’t benefit.


“Dairy graziers and others who are operating on a smaller scale are not the consumers of feed
stuffs and farm supplies and farm equipment that the larger farmers are.”


There’s another reason, says Pete Barney of the Cornell Cooperative Extension in St. Lawrence
County, New York. It’s rooted in dairy history in this country.


“Milk plants, milk companies wanted a year-round, constant supply of milk, so now farmers bred
animals so they were coming in periodically throughout the whole year so they could keep a constant
flow of milk going.”


A different system can work on a large scale. Brian Petrucci says in some countries all dairy
farms are seasonal and grazing operations.


Back on the Sullivan farm, Kevin Sullivan says seasonal dairying is also good for his family. The
two months off from milking means more time for his kids, even a vacation, a rare thing among
dairy farmers.


“Farming is, you know, daily grind. Most people get locked into it and they don’t realize that there is
something besides going to the barn and doing chores every day. It’s really kind of opened up
our life a little bit to enjoy our hobbies in the wintertime at least.”


Sullivan’s business is good. He’s invested in an ice cream factory with some neighbors. He says
thanks to grazing and seasonal dairying, his fields are clean and green, his cows are healthy, and
his farm is thriving when so many other small farms are up for sale.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m David Sommerstein.

Dairy Farmer Gives Cows a Winter Break

Most dairy farmers around the Great Lakes region milk their cows all year long. It brings in a steady paycheck and ensures a steady flow of milk to manufacturing plants. Now a small but growing number of farmers give their cows a break during the coldest months. It’s a technique called seasonal dairying. Its supporters say it’s gentler on the cows, it’s easier on the environment, and it gives small dairy farms a future in an industry that’s growing ever bigger. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein reports:

Transcript

Most dairy farmers around the Great Lakes region milk their cows all year long. It brings in a steady
paycheck and ensures a steady flow of milk to manufacturing plants. Now a small but growing
number of farmers give their cows a break during the coldest months. It’s a technique called seasonal
dairying. Its supporters say it’s gentler on the cows. It’s easier on the environment. And it gives
small dairy farms a future in an industry that’s growing ever bigger. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s David Sommerstein reports:


It’s a chilly winter day in the northern New York town of Denmark. Kevin Sullivan strides into
the barn where his 60 cows munch quietly on their day’s feed.


“In the winter we’re pretty much conventional farmers.”


On conventional farms, cows stay in the barn all year long. The farmer trucks hay and grain into
the barn to feed them. But Sullivan is a grazier. His cows munch on pasture grasses from April
to October. And when they’re inside for winter, he “dries the cows off” for a couple months.
That means they don’t give milk until they start calving in the spring. Sullivan says he first read
an article about what’s called “seasonal dairying” ten years ago.


“I started thinking about it then and I kinda ran it past my wife and she laughed at me and said
‘y’know it’ll never work.'”


The problem with the seasonal system is dairy farmers are used to relying on their monthly milk
check to pay bills. No milk, no check. That took some getting used to.


“The first year was kind of scary ’cause you don’t really have any income for a couple months in
the wintertime but after we made it through that first year, I knew it was going to work pretty
good.”


The reason it works is outside.


Sullivan zips up his jacket and walks out to the barnyard. Unlike most farms, there’s not much
mud, just acres of thick green grass peeking through a dusting of snow.


“Once you get a sod built up like this, you can bring out your cows, I mean, the cows could be out
here today and they’re not going to hurt this pasture at all.”


Grazing is the key to seasonal dairying. You time when your cows give birth to calves and
produce their best milk to coincide with spring and early summer. That’s when pastures grow
the most nutritious grass. Sullivan says it’s a cow’s natural cycle.


“Cows were made to eat grass. A lot of people forgot about that, I guess. I would say the two biggest things that
harm a cow is grain and concrete and a lot of guys push grain and the cows are on concrete all
the while but by kicking the cows outside and letting them be on the sod and letting them eat the
grass, you can get rid of about 90% of your cow problems.”


In the pasture, they’re less susceptible to foot diseases than cows in a muddy barnyard. And
because grazing cows roam many acres, their manure is spread naturally and fertilizes the land.
A grazing farm typically has less erosion, uses fewer pesticides, and is less polluting to nearby
creeks than a conventional farm, where cows are confined to a small area and the farmer has to
dispose of tons of manure.

The method is easier on the animals and the land. And often easier on the farmer’s wallet too. A
study by the American Farmland Trust finds seasonal dairying can be an economically viable
alternative to conventional farming, especially for small farms like Kevin Sullivan’s. But only one or two percent of farms in the U.S. are seasonal. Brian Petrucci directs the American Farmland
Trust’s farm division.


“At some point in the last twenty years, it was decided that the only way to farm in this country was to get big or
get out.”


Under the tutelage of Ag school extensions, farm herds have swelled from the hundreds to the
tens of thousands. State and federal environmental agencies have had to create new regulations to
contain all the waste the farms generate. At the same time, thousands of small farms have gone
out of business.


Petrucci says seasonal dairying can help reverse the trend. But it’s slow to catch on in part
because the agriculture industry – the companies that supply the farmers – often doesn’t benefit.


“Dairy graziers and others who are operating on a smaller scale are not the consumers of feed
stuffs and farm supplies and farm equipment that the larger farmers are.”


There’s another reason, says Pete Barney of the Cornell Cooperative Extension in St. Lawrence
County, New York. It’s rooted in dairy history in this country.


“Milk plants, milk companies wanted a year-round, constant supply of milk, so now farmers bred
animals so they were coming in periodically throughout the whole year so they could keep a constant
flow of milk going.”


A different system can work on a large scale. Brian Petrucci says in some countries all dairy
farms are seasonal and grazing operations.


Back on the Sullivan farm, Kevin Sullivan says seasonal dairying is also good for his family. The
two months off from milking means more time for his kids, even a vacation, a rare thing among
dairy farmers.


“Farming is, you know, daily grind. Most people get locked into it and they don’t realize that there is
something besides going to the barn and doing chores every day. It’s really kind of opened up
our life a little bit to enjoy our hobbies in the wintertime at least.”


Sullivan’s business is good. He’s invested in an ice cream factory with some neighbors. He says
thanks to grazing and seasonal dairying, his fields are clean and green, his cows are healthy, and
his farm is thriving when so many other small farms are up for sale.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m David Sommerstein.

STUDY SAYS REGION’S PRIME FARMLAND AT RISK

A new study shows prime farmland in the Great Lakes region is being lost to development. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Natalie Walston reports:

Transcript

A new study shows prime farmland in the Great Lakes region is
being lost to development. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Natalie Walston reports:


The study by the American Farmland Trust ranks Great lakes states at the top of a list of
states with the most rapidly disappearing prime farmland. It says between 1992 and 1997
more than 6-million acres of land nationwide ripe for growing fruits and vegetables were
paved over. Bob Wagner speaks for the non-profit group. He says one problem is the
acreage per person in a housing development has almost doubled in the past 20 years.


“That’s more land that’s needed for each household and we need to get a handle on those
kind of sprawling, fragmented development patterns.”


Wagner says Ohio ranks second in the nation for the amount of farm land lost during the
time period that was studied, while Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania and New
York state are listed among the top twenty states losing land to urban sprawl.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Natalie Walston.

Better Life in the Burbs?

  • New construction continues to spread into the countryside. A new study looks at the quality of life in these suburban developments.

People who move to the suburbs often say they’re escaping the stress of the city. But researchers are finding the suburbs cause a lot of stress for residents too, and the difference doesn’t seem to be as much about where you live as it is about how you live. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

People who move to the suburbs often say they’re escaping the stress of the city. But researchers are finding the suburbs cause a lot of stress for residents too. And, the difference doesn’t seem to be as much about where you live as it is about how you live. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports.


Ahhh, living in the suburbs, quiet tree lined streets, green lawns, and in the distance a glimpse of undisturbed woods along a creek or maybe farmland rolling off to the horizon. Across the Great Lakes region, the suburbs are picture perfect. Well, maybe not quite perfect.


A group of researchers has been spending a lot of time in the sprawling Chicago suburbs to see what draws people to the area, what they like, don’t like, from where they move and whether they intend to stay where they are, in the ‘burbs. What they’ve found is that living in the suburbs is not quite as stark or as bleak or as sterile as some of the popular press portrays it. But at the same time it’s not as blissful as the images in the brochures printed up by developers.


Charles Cappell is a sociologist at the Social Services Research Institute at Northern Illinois University. Since 1991 he’s been conducting surveys of people living in the suburbs. Mostly it’s been about why they live there. Usually the participants talk about their children, safety for their kids, nice schools, and nice green space for the family. But, recently Cappell and his team have been probing a little more deeply.


“In subsequent surveys, in 2000 for example, we did measure stress and we do know that suburbanites experience stress. They’re stressed from the demands of suburban life, some of the friction. But, in general, they report a fairly good quality of life.”


Of course, part of that quality of life is due to the surroundings. But after moving to the suburbs many people miss some of the more urban conveniences. And so as the housing developments sprout, the retailers are paving parking lots right behind them.


“This is one of the contradictions of suburban life: they value the quiet, green, suburban lawns and openness, and they crave the convenience of the shopping malls.”


But with that convenience comes the inconvenience of congested traffic on roads not designed to carry such huge volumes. While cities and counties spend untold millions of dollars widening old roads and building new ones, the suburbanites cope with the stresses of back-ups.


Rich Green is a geographer at Northern Illinois. He’s watched as the suburbs have spiraled out away from Chicago, causing an intricate and massive spider web of new roadways. Still, some politicians are calling for more and bigger roads in the suburbs. U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert is calling for an interstate to be built in his district that will create a new outer-belt for the Chicago metro area, some nearly 50 miles away from downtown. But Green says the Interstates in the Chicago area have simply created corridors of development. Instead of relieving traffic, some experts say the interstates around Chicago have simply given sprawl better access.


“Clearly, building these interstates hasn’t corrected some of the problems that people were hoping for. Usually, if you expand a highway, you bring more people.”


Traffic hassles are not the only stress suburbanites face. In fact, the more serious stressors have to do with the cost of living there. During the heady days of the stock market boom, people started building bigger and better houses out on one acre lots on the fringes of the ‘burbs. Now, because of the poor performance of the markets, those houses –sometimes derogatorily called ‘McMansions’– are extravagances that some suburbanites are struggling to afford. But if they want to live in the new Chicago suburbs, they don’t have much choice. Prices have skyrocketed and there’s very little in the way of affordable housing being built.


Dick Esseks is a retired professor who’s been doing research for the American Farmland Trust. The Trust is concerned about the loss of farmland due to development. Esseks says many of those who moved to the suburbs did so when times were good, but with the downturn in the economy, some of those people face forced early retirement.


“When they go from full-time workers to pensioned workers, can they find housing in the same community, stay in the same church, stay in the same synagogue, stay in other associations?”


Esseks says because many of the municipalities require large lots, have very high standards for construction, and agree to annex large subdivisions of ‘McMansions,’ they leave behind the chances for more affordable housing. Only the very well off can afford to live in many of the suburbs.


Still, even with the weight of big mortgages hanging over their heads, bad traffic congestion, and other stresses, researchers have found suburbanites seem to cope better on average than their counterparts in the city. Sociologist Charles Cappell says there’s a reason for that, and it has to do with who lives in the suburbs. Cappell says it’s established that married people and people with families tend to deal with stress better than single people. Older people are less stressed than young people, and the suburbs have a much greater ratio of traditional families with middle-aged parents than in the city.


“Some of the differences between quality of life between urban and suburban experiences can be attributed to the fact that urban places are more stressful or there are higher levels of stress because of these reasons. There’s more single people. They’re younger. But, the sources of stress, environmentally, may be different, but I think the bigger indicators of stress are your kind of social environment, your psychological space, how you cope, what kind of support you have and families in spite of their increased burdens on time, really do offer emotional support.”


So, people in the ‘burbs’, generally speaking, have a better support structure at home, and usually have the means to pay for a more comfortable, less stressful life to begin with. Cappell says getting out of the city and into the suburbs is not the answer to a stress-free life, but it just so happens there are a lot of people who live in the suburbs who are better able to cope with life’s stress.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

Survey Respondents Favor Farmland Protection

A new poll indicates the majority of voters are concerned that farmland is being paved over by urban sprawl. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

A new poll indicates the majority of voters are concerned that farmland is being paved over by urban sprawl. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports.


The American Farmland Trust conducted a nationwide poll that found
53-percent of the nation’s registered voters want federal dollars spent to keep farmland from being developed. That was nowhere as true as in five midwestern states where sprawl is a pressing issue. In that region 73-percent of those surveyed agreed farmland should be protected from sprawl. Ed Minihan is the Director of the Upper Midwest Field Office of the American Farmland Trust.


“The general populous sees this. You can’t miss it. I mean, you just can’t miss it. And it’s pretty clear that the general public is far ahead of the politicians on this.”


Most of the midwestern states have not yet passed legislation to protect farmland from development. Across the nation, approximately one million acres of prime farmland are lost each year due to sprawl.

Related Links

Farmland Threatened by Development

The outward growth of big city suburbs and of small towns booming because of retirees getting out of the city is putting pressure on some farm areas. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports state governments are stepping in to regulate some of the seemingly out-of-control growth: