Embrace The Farmer, Agriculture Will Prevent Sprawl

This article examines the implications of the decades-longeffortin Sonoma County to stave off urbansprawlby encouraging farming. But now that agriculture occupies so much of thelandscape, residents from rural neighborhoods are calling for newfarmingregulations. County supervisors will consider the first draft ofproposedchanges to the county's land-use plan developed by citizen groups overthepast year. But some warn that undermining farm protections could havetheunintended effect of encouraging sprawl.