Tag: land-use

Sprawl Tough on New Farmers

  • J. and Kelly Williams farm 700 acres of corn and soybeans. They also both work full-time jobs off the farm. Supplemental income is necessary for many beginner farmers trying to break into the business. (Photo by Corbin Sullivan)

In a recent survey, young farmers said their biggest challenge is finding available land to farm. That’s because there’s so much competition for the land these days. Farmers compete with developers who have deep pockets to buy land for new subdivisions or retail centers. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner has the story of one young farm couple trying to get started:

Transcript

In a recent survey, young farmers said their biggest challenge is finding available land to farm. That’s because there’s so much competition for the land these days. Farmers compete with developers who have deep pockets to buy land for new subdivisions or retail centers. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner has the story of one young farm couple trying to get started:


J. Williams and his wife Kelly grow corn and soybeans. Their farm is relatively small, 700 acres in southern Michigan. They do all the work themselves – they plant, treat, harvest and market their own crops. It’s a lot of work for two people, especially since both J. and Kelly also have full-time jobs off the farm. He works at a bank and she works as a farm credit analyst.


They hope to one day be able to quit those jobs, and live off the farm income, but that might take awhile. The Williams had to take out big loans to buy land and equipment. They’re deep in debt, but they say farming is the life they want.


“Part of it’s entrepreneurial, it’s being your own boss, it’s making your own decisions and not being responsible to anyone but yourself for successes and failures. Part of it’s just natural attachment to nature and being outside and enjoying that, and part of it’s just simply independence.”


To achieve complete independence, J. says he needs to buy more farmland, but when he tries, he has to compete with a dozen or so other bidders, and they’re not all farmers. Some are developers looking for places to build homes or stores. The developers can afford to spend a lot more for the land because they’ll make a quick and substantial profit once the land is turned into neighborhoods or strip malls.


It’s a common scenario. In the last two decades, the United States has lost close to 50 million acres of farmland, most of it mid-size farms – which are typically family-owned. They’ve been chopped up and sold to developers or to sometimes gobbled up by factory farm owners.


Scott Everett is the Great Lakes regional director for America’s Farmland Trust. His group lobbies to preserve farmland. He says even when crop prices are at their highest, a sweet development deal is usually too good for some farmers to pass up.


“This generation, farmers today that own farmland today, have something much different than their fathers had. They’ve got this land that is worth so much more for development than it is for agriculture.”


Everett says farmland is often sold to developers at triple what it would be worth as agricultural land. That makes land prices high… and that means young farmers have a tough time getting loans.


Bruce Weir is with the U.S. Farm Service Agency. The agency offers loans to many beginner farmers who haven’t been able to get financing anywhere else.


“Right now it is tough for a young farmer, without a lot of collateral or capital to start with to start. It’s almost impossible. We don’t like to say that, but it is tough for them.”


A lot of beginning farmers know the odds are against them, but like J. Williams, the banker who wants to become a full-time farmer; they’re still hoping to expand their farms. Williams says he’d like to know that available land won’t simply go to the highest bidder. He wants farmland to remain farmland. He’s working with a group of local farmers to persuade government leaders to develop long-term land use plans.


“There are some areas in our county that are better suited for industrial use, some better for residential, some better for agricultural, and we believe at least that there should be a targeted approach, and a common-sense approach, to planning out our community so that we can maintain a proper balance.”


J. Williams says farming is going well for him and his wife so far. He says… just like the old saying goes, his corn was knee high before the Fourth of July, and the Williams’ fledgling farm is already turning a profit, but they still have to keep their day jobs. J. says it might be that way for some time, if government doesn’t protect farmland from the high price of development, and preserve it for agriculture.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Erin Toner.

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School Choice Complicates Land-Use Choice

  • School districts are building huge, palatial schools far outside suburban cities to attract school choice students. Okemos High School in Michigan is an example, with its turrets and sprawling athletic fields. The school is actually facing a dearth of students in coming years. (Photo by Corbin Sullivan)

Parents want to send their kids to the best schools, but those schools aren’t always in their neighborhood. Lawmakers in most states say school choice is the answer. Giving students a choice is supposed to make all schools better, but an unintended consequence of school choice is bad choices for land use. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Corbin Sullivan reports:

Transcript

Parents want to send their kids to the best schools, but those schools aren’t always in the neighborhood. Lawmakers in most states say school choice is the answer. Giving students a choice is supposed to make all schools better. But an unintended consequence of school choice is bad choices for land use. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Corbin Sullivan reports:


Ken Brock lives in the heart of Michigan’s capital city, and he works just a mile away. He and his family live in a quaint neighborhood of homes built in the 1920s and 30s, with interesting neighbors and light traffic, but when Brock started looking at the Lansing schools, he didn’t find what he wanted for his then fourth grade daughter, and neither did she.


“We actually took her to the urban school. And it was an eye opening experience for her. She said to my wife at one point during the visit, ‘Mom, these kids don’t know how to behave.'”


After shopping around, Brock and his daughter decided on a suburban school a few miles outside the city. The school is 20 minutes from the Brock’s home, and no bus runs from downtown Lansing to the school. Brock’s daughter is going into ninth grade and she’ll be behind the wheel soon. But for now, Brock and his wife are willing to make the 40-minute round trip drive, sometimes three times a day, to make sure their daughter’s getting what they feel is a better education.


“I don’t think we’re unique that the number one priority in our life is our daughter, and we’re going to do what it takes to make sure she has the best education and the greatest opportunities available to her.”


Forty-one states have school choice laws. They’re supposed to make schools compete for students and the government money that’s tied to them. The idea is that competition will force schools to up the ante on education, and in the end, all the choices will be better, but suburban school districts are trying to lure students in other ways.


“Those communities often respond by building very large, wonderful schools. But they feel pressure to build these schools farther and farther outside the city.”


Mac McClelland is with the Michigan Land Use Institute. The institute is a non-profit that promotes smart growth. He says instead of just spending the school choice dollars only to improve education, suburban school districts are building huge, palace-like schools to attract students. These schools are too big to be built near city centers. Instead they’re popping up in the middle of cornfields. McLelland says that’s bad land use.


“Folks are putting pressure on land use and opening up new areas by these new schools, extending sewer lines, extending roads and opening up new areas to development.”


McLelland says the goal of school choice legislation was better education. But instead they’ve ended up with a lot of giant, shiny new schools, and once they’re built, the communities gravitate toward them, following the new roads and sewers. McLelland says it’s a gamble — spending money on a new school to get more students and therefore more money. The gamble doesn’t always pay off, so McLelland says schools should worry more about spending money on their teachers and classes – and try to save money on the actual building.


“In every situation that we looked at, it was cheaper to remodel than it was to build new. Even though there might be some sacrifices, some other changes that may not be necessarily, might not be ideal for all people in the school system, that it was less expensive, provided more value, and also decreased the additional cost to that community in terms of extending sewer, water and roads out to that particular area.”


McLelland says putting the emphasis solely on education would give urban schools a more level playing field with schools in the suburbs. He says there’s no need to keep expanding out, because there’s still space for more kids in urban schools.


Ken Brock took his daughter out of the city schools, but he says he’ s not adding to the urban sprawl that often follows the new schools. He says if it weren’t for school choice, his family would have moved to the suburbs to support his daughter’s educational needs. He thinks school choice might be keeping families like his in cities.


“What I want to say and be very specific is I think middle and upper class families would be a smaller percentage of the city population if there weren’t educational options available.”


Brock is arguing that school choice might actually slow sprawl because families can live where they want and still send their kids to the school they want. But not everyone can manage the 40-minute commute two and three times a day to take their kids from the city out to the school in the suburbs, so many families end up moving closer and new subdivisions pop up in the fields around the big, new schools.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Corbin Sullivan.

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