Most of the counties and major cities in California's Central Valley are failing to make significant progress at preserving farmland in the nation's most important agricultural region, according to this new study from the American Farmland Trust.
The report is an interactive Web site featuring data and charts on farmland trends, maps that allow you to zoom in closely to see where farmland is being developed, an analysis of local land use plans, and a page where you can rank the performance of Central Valley counties using your own criteria.
California's Central Valley "is an irreplaceable agricultural resource that is under siege from urban and rural development. It is one of only a handful of areas in the world with a Mediterranean climate in which fruit and vegetable crops flourish.
...In only a century and a half since the Gold Rush, almost 700 thousand acres on the floor of the Valley have been developed for urban use. Almost 100 thousand acres of this were paved over in the 1990's alone. Within just the next generation, close to a million more acres of farmland could vanish, putting additional pressure on the ability of the region's farmers to continue producing food for the state, the nation and the world."
...How California's "Central Valley grows is its most important challenge of all -- one that will determine whether California remains the world's pre-emminent agricultural producer; and whether the people who live in the Valley, today and into the future, will enjoy a high quality of life."
FULL STORY: The Future Is Now: Central Valley Farmland at the Tipping Point?
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