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Show 'OUT THERE' n11 Runnin' out of room Molln tain bil<ers ride along a trail in West Valley City, Utah , last week , w here th e fo rmer w heat fi eld will soon becom e anoth er subdivision . Every year, urban flight and a swe]ling population replace thousands of acres of prim e fa rmland with asphalt, bedroom s and lawns. O ver the past two decades, U tah has lost n early 1 million of its 12 million acres of fa rmland, or about one acre for every new resident as the state's population dou bled. Asphalt, concrete: last crops for Utah farmlands? By BOB MIMS ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Eleven years ago, Ken and Teri McKean built their dream home on a lonely road with a name as poetic as it was appropriate: "Far Vista Drive." .. .Just to the west loomed the Oquirrh Mountains. Wheat fields stretched unbroken to the south. Just one of a few families in the southwestern reaches of the Salt Lake Valley, the McKeans saw deer and coyote about as often as their neighbors. ..."It's why we moved out here," said Teri McKean. "That, and to get away from smog and traffic." ...However, the McKeans' solitude has since been broken by hundreds of new homes, and the sea of grain along the southern horizon is giving way to yet another subdivision. .. .It is a story common throughout Utah. Every year, urban flight and a swelling population replace thousands of acres of prime farmland with asphalt, bedrooms and lawns. .. .Over the past two decades, Utah has lost nearly 1 million of its 12 million acres of farmland, or about one acre for every new resident as the state's population doubled. ... " We're 2 million people just this last fall, and at the present growth rate we will double within the next 30 years," said Cary Peterson, Utah Agriculture and Food commissioner. "If we continue ... like we have, much of the good agricultural land will be covered up." .. .Urban sprawl has not yet turned the state from an exporter of food to importer: In 1996, producers and processors set an export record of $280 million. .. ."The consumer will say, 'I go to Smith's or Harmon's and there's always plenty of food,"' Peterson said. "But it's the farmers who are growing that food. When your last crop is asphalt, you've plowed under a food-producing natural resource - a farm." ... Booth Wallentine, executive director of the Utah Farm Bureau, predicts the trend eventually will be reflected at the checkout lines. ... "Ultimately, the price of food and fiber will have to rise to the point where it's more economical to keep the land in agriculture than urban development," he said. ... Net farm in Utah incom e dipped from $289.8 mill ion to $18 1.3 million between 1992 and 1995. ...Brent Tanner, executive director of the Utah ... Proposed remedies range from zoning restrictions on Cattlemen's Association, has a constant reminder of new developments to implementing taxpayer-funded urban sprawl: Membership in his organization has programs to buy up development rights from farmers shrunk from 700 to less than 500 in the past five years. to preserve open spaces . ... "People are just selling out as cities move in around ...The latter approach is favored by Utah Open Lands, their farms," Tanner said. "We are tending to push a nonprofit organization that has saved 2,500 acres by our cattle out of the central part of the state into Box negotiating donations of "conservation easements" Elder, Sanpete and Sevier." essentially development rights - from farmers and .. .Utah ranchers grazed 930,000 cattle as this year ranchers . ... UOL executive director Wendy Fisher acknowledges opened, 20,000 head more than the year before, but having to operate from increasingly remote ranges is the acreage salvaged is small, but she hopes to do taking a toll. better. ... Cash receipts for Utah cattle were $244.2 million in .. ."Right now, we are negotiating about 100,000 acres of agricultural and ranch land throughout the state," 1996, down 7 percent from 1995. While milk production increased 5 percent to 1.55 billion pounds Fisher said. 1995-96, so have consumer prices - up from 49 cents ... Wallentine docs not see conservation easements as a quart in 1991 to 60 cents last year. the answer, especially if they are government-funded ... "Some of the ranchers arc saying, 'Hey, I can't afford as in states such as Maryland, Washington, California to truck feed in, it's difficult to make ends meet and and Michigan. I've got a developer knocking on the door. Why fight ... "The only way transferable property rights will it?"' Tanner said. work is if someone can get a direct line to Solomon, " ... The Utah Association of Realtors reported sales of he quipped. "We believe very strongly that despite the more than 5,600 homes in 1996's fourth quarter alone. disruptive problems it creates, the market system is This year's first quarter, heading into the prime still the best allocator of resources." summer and fall sales seasons, also got off to a good .. .Utah County Commission Chairman Jerry Grover start with more than 4,200 sales at an average price of agrees there are "limits to what any government nearly $ I 44,300. entity can do. . ..Perhaps nowhere is urban encroachment as ... "And frankly, I'm not interested in making a dramatic as in Utah County, where nearly 900 homes 'farmer's zoo,' sort of saving the farmer so everyone were sold in l996's fourth quarter - m ore than can go look at him." double the number for the previous year's final · ...Grover prefers using incentives to encourage quarter. residential development on land unsuited to farming. ... Since 1990, the county's population has swell~d He also hopes for eventual relief from the planned from about 264,000 in 1990 to some 320,000 today. Spanish Fork Canyon-N ephi Pipeline. ... F. Dean Miner, a Utah State University extension ...The line, part of the Central Utah Project, would agent in Provo, estimates 10 percent of the county's irrigate southern Utah and Juab counties. best farmland, 7,250 acres, has been paved over this ...But even that could prove a short-term solution for a decade - a rate doubJc that for the 1980s. state expected to top 4 million residents before 2030, ... Growing suburbs are forcing relocation of orchards said Ray Loveless, water quality director for the in Utah County - producer of 80 percent of the Mountainlands Association of Governments. state's fruit - from the Provo-Orem benches south to ..."What (CUP would do) is irrigate .farmland that is Payson and Santaquin. · already there; it just hasn't had a good water supply. A ..."It is unlikely they will move again," Miner said. lot of it already has been dry-farmed," he said. "Orchards require more than just water and good ...Loveless himself recently moved back to his land. They require suitable microclimates·that family's 11 -acre farm near Payson to escape city life. provide the necessary conditions for successful fruit ... "We all want open space. That's why I m oved out," growth. he said. " I like to see pheasants off my back porch. I ..." When (existing) orchards ... are developed, fresh don't like to see houses all around m e. Utah peaches, sweet cherries and apples will likely be ... " But I don' t know the answer. It really is a tough a taste sensation only remembered," he warned. one. " |