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Agriculture and Farmland Protection

Issue & Response (Adobe PDF)

Agenda

May 29, 2003

9 am - 12 noon

Monroe County Cornell Cooperative Extension

Objective:  To obtain input and recommendations on how state programs to protect agriculture and the agricultural land base can be strengthened, along with suggestions for increasing local understanding and support for their implementation.

  9:10   Welcome - Dave Zorn, Executive Director, Genesee/Finger Lakes RPC

  9:15   Introductions (objectives, powerpoint on low development pressure study) - 

           Dan Conable, Project Coordinator, NYS Dept. of Ag. & Markets

  9:45   Discussion section 1 - Existing programs (administrative issues, resources,

           dynamics they fail to address)

10:45   Discussion section 2 - Support for farmland protection (forces encouraging

           or undermining; means of strengthening local support)

11:45   Roundtable Wrap Up - Issues & Proposals, reporting

Minutes

• We need to get a hold of fundamental concerns

• What do farmers face?

• What wealth, energy, capital (political and otherwise) is out there in regard to this issue?

• Long term challenges are not just economic but structural

• Farming constituency: 50,000 at most out of 20 million

• But is this an underestimate?

• How about sympathetic non-farmers?

• State trends

• Voluntary programs as opposed to regulatory

• Bias towards programs with other funding matches

• Shocking changes to the landscape in past 25 years for those who have left and then returned

• Those returning dismayed by the lack of tools here that other regions of the county have to protect farmland

• The threat to agriculture has not been taken seriously here

• Good news: we’re still in a position to do something with all our resources – this includes farmers, non-farmers and land.

• There is a sense among some present, mostly the farmers, that if farming was profitable, all our problems would go away and that we would not need meetings like this

• This is not necessarily the case

• Market can be used to preserve agriculture

• Ex: NJ is built out

• To avoid a situation similar to NJ, let’s look at our habits for consumption of land

• Competitive disadvantage for NYS if continues to fragment ag land

• Wyoming County - 20th county in nation for dairy: important to identify essential ag land, comprehensive planning is needed

• Many farmers suspicious/hostile toward anything seen as a gov’t program or more regulation.

• Local officials and residents NEED TO UNDERSTAND the connection between land use, services, and taxes

• Reduce demand for government service (agriculture is least demanding of government services)

• When development occurs, who pays for increasing costs? What is the consequence on the public? They incur the costs.

• Inefficient delivery of infrastructure is a problem

• Look at smaller systems rather than 7 miles of pipe to serve 24 houses

• Cheaper in the long run

• Need to link appropriately scaled infrastructure to need

• People have the right to live where they want, but when they build, who pays for services and how?

• People want industry/commercial because of tax yield (but do they understand long term implications in terms of houses, services needed, etc?)

• Is a sense that no one is going to say "I don’t want houses" in my town

• Are farms being taxed for services they’re not receiving?? Perhaps houses not paying enough

• Too often officials/planning boards re-act to what’s happening, rather than actually planning for future possibilities.

• Planning – from the point of view of local planning boards, farmers can be a problem when they auction off land without communicating first with town and/or planning officials

• This makes ag land protection efforts more difficult

• Vocabulary is telling (words frame ideas)

• "highest and best use" There is a lack of leadership to recognize ag as the "highest and best use" of land

• Pejorative terms sometimes used: Ag land is described as "vacant" or "developable"

• Ordinances talk about "ag nuisances"

• Lack of multi government level cooperation

• Ag districts used as zoning

• Ag District Revisions

• County planning board, farmland protection report: combine two reports for PR piece; will be more efficient and meaningful

• Should be an option for counties to produce 1 report instead of 2

• Consolidating reports to reflect reality of how work is done

• How to use GIS technology to help the process?

• Rolling ag district enrollment would be nightmare for county planning depts.; was enacted without consultation

• Ag district is blunt tool for farmland protection

• Renewal of ag districts and public participation varies by locality

• Public hearings: waste of time, low turnout – Genesee County

• Turnout varies – Monroe County

• Livingston County predicts contentious renewal process; relates to changing demographics/politics

• Ag districts help in Canandaigua

• They keep land in ag land classification

• Bill proposed for state reimbursement to municipalities for land classified as forest (the reasoning is that forest land demands from gov’t services from all levels of gov’t)

• Why not a reimbursement for land classified as ag, since it similarly demands few services?

• The money could then be used for ag land preservation programs

• Conversion of ag land penalty

• Too small? Make it a bigger disincentive?

• Use revenues for PDR or farmer’s retirement fund?

• Might drive land out of ag districts if too high

• Changing demographics and politics in rural counties:

• Conflict of rural residential and ag uses

• Boards used to be made up of mostly farmers or those familiar with farming; now many boards have people without any ag background

• New boards/residents may be less sympathetic to ag concerns

• How do we engage the new board and residents?

• Methane digesters are important with regard to addressing smell and as an economic development vehicle

• Ag and Markets need to give greater assistance to methane digesters

• 50% of digesters in US are in NYS

• Preserving farmland and preserving open land and vistas are not the same thing

• Many newcomers to the country have an unrealistic view of ag

• In a survey associated with the new comp plan, 80% of Town of Canandaigua people wanted to preserve farmland

• Animal ag resistance : people want a certain "look" to farms

• People want to preserve ag to live in bucolic setting but not deal with manure or tractors

• Prime soils and contiguous parcels should be key criteria in farmland preservation

• PDR doesn’t always appeal to the farmer

• None of the farmers in Canandaigua wanted to use PDR (but were receptive to the long range use of the tool)

• Canandaigua has commercial/industrial base to support PDR

• Communities at more risk are those without commercial/industrial tax base

• PDR works best if big gap in ag value of land and non ag value of land

• Not the case in Eastern Ontario County

• Different dynamic: good soils, high ag land value (if not fragmented), diversified

• Wanted to know if PDR could be used for frontage lots, which are a problem in Eastern Ontario County

• Permanency of farmland protection can be helped if we create time frames that help spread out resources

• PDR scares some farmers (i.e. it’s "forever")

• 10-20 year windows of protection may more appropriate time frame

• What about deed restrictions instead of PDR?

• What can be done at a local level?

• State presses mandates on the county

• Fewer mandates could mean money for other projects/options

• Revenue stream from renewable energy to fund farmland protection?

• Growing resistance to wind farms, esp from non-ag residents

• NYS not considered ag friendly compared to neighboring states. For ex, PA and OH compensate for predator damage. In addition, R&D money is more restricted here.

• NAFTA issues are raised

• Canadian farmers can sell produce, bedding plants here but NYS farmers can’t sell there

• Is this really true or anectdotal evidence? Are Ontario farmers unfairly targeted as scapegoats?

• State regulations on farmland are an obstacle (labor, costs, red tape)

• Ag/farm protection has to have economic development in the equation; ag is NYS #1 industry, IDA types must recognize this

• Empire zones sited in ag districts; should not be happening

• There is ag overproduction as is; need processing facilities, cheese plant, juice plant, etc.

• Most farmers do not want to convert their land. Farmers would like to retire and would like their land to remain ag - but it does not always work out that way

• Retirement is a huge issue for farmers who often see their land as their single biggest resource to provide for them later in life. No pensions or 401k plans.

• County, town property tax, school tax: could some to go to farmer’s retirement?

• Take 1/2 revenue of local, county, school taxes from ag land and put towards farmers retirement fund (feasibility study for this program)

• Where does this revenue come from?

• How much of a shift?

• Who gets the burden?

• How to raise new revenue? (especially at local level?)

• Farmers need to work now and plan for the future in order to make a living that can carry them through retirement.

• What about the possibility of a farmer retirement plan funded with money from the purchase of development rights (PDR) or mortgage transfer tax. The land resource base remains intact and it simplifies taxes for farmers.

• Concerns over the shifting of revenues to pay for farmers retirement and the reluctance of many farmers to endorse what may be seen as a complicated gov’t program.

• Assessors are much more meticulous now that budgets are so tight

• Even active farmland has fluctuations of use ~ idle, vacant, etc. Assessors are often looking for any opportunity to classify land at a higher assessment rate

• The state’s opinion : property should be assed at current use except vacant land (assessed at highest use)

• This opens "hole" for assessors who come back when land is idle and do full assessment (ORPS law allows this)

• Crucial to examine/extend time that ag land can be idle without worrying about its assessment being raised

• Also, assessors are over-valuing vacant buildings

• this promotes destruction of un-used buildings (historic barns, landscape, agro-tourism issues)

• School taxes are up

• School taxes are more of burden than local and county taxes: farm school tax exemption is not good enough because of ceiling

• How to build broader support?

• Who’s got the money?

• Who will respond in marketing campaign?

• People who move to the country: have $, influence

• Lack of land use in high school curriculum: what are we teaching our children about the issue?

• Ag classes have fallen by the wayside

• Mandated state curriculum is partly to blame

• The need for teaching colleges to expose teachers in training to ag

• Farmers: no one understands us

• Should be working with tourism departments, some are

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Last Modified:  May 01, 2007