Almost every week there is an article, letter to the editor or editorial in The Herald about saving farmland in Snohomish County.
The county executive or some council member will wrap themselves in the county flag and pontificate on how important farming and farmland is to the county. Each year or so some new group is formed to “save the farmland” and finds the financing to challenge any attempt to develop “farmland.”
Of course, some of these groups have ulterior motives, such as preventing radio towers or other developments being build in their back yards.
For the past 25 years Dwayne Lane has been trying to build a car dealership on a parcel of land at Island Crossing. It appears that his efforts finely have been successful and a recent court decision has cleared the way for the project to proceed.
Well, maybe. The County Council has launched another effort to stop the City of Arlington from annexing Island Crossing into the city. How much will that cost us taxpayers in court costs? In this time of budget crisis, how can the county afford another prolonged legal battle?
The parcel that Mr. Lane wants to develop is an insignificant to the overall farmland acreage in the county, but the fight is about principles. Millions of lives have been lost over the past centuries in conflicts over principles.
Locally grown and raised farm products are very important to our area; we get high quality produce that we know is fresh and healthy. I strongly feel that we should support our local farmer. But no matter how I feel, or how strongly others may fight to “save the farmland,” ultimately farming is a business and a farm has to make a profit to survive!
If farming is so important to the county and its leaders, why aren’t they doing more to assist the family farmer? Have they given any property tax breaks to family farms? Have they enacted any “right to farm” ordinances? Have they challenged the Department of Ecology when new regulations are enacted that affect family farms? If the methane that is produced in the council chambers while debating this issue could be turned into electricity, we could light the county for years.
When we moved to the area more than 30 years ago, I could stand in by back yard and count at least 10 dairy farms, and several farms that were growing seed crops, sweet corn and peas. Each summer fleets of pea viners would slowly travel the farm roads, moving from field to field, working 24/7 harvesting peas.
Not so today, we have people hopefully making a living off the land by growing nursery stock (in pots for the most part) or growing vegetables for sale at roadside stands. The folks who are doing this must find ways to add to their bottom line, and they do it by offering more than just the produce they grow on their farm. Awhile back I read a quote by one farmer who added a corn maze to his operation; he said he made more from the corn maze than from the corn.
The economic reality of farming is that it is easier to make a living off of farming in Eastern Washington. There the land is affordable, taxes are lower and local leaders really understand the value of the family farm and enact laws that help, not hinder, the farmer.
There are still farmers who make a living by growing seed crops or produce in the local area and some dairy farmers are still in operation, but it is becoming more difficult to make a profit. How much good will saving farmland do when the family farmers cannot make a profit and stay in the farming business?
The focus of those who oppose the conversion of farmland to other uses should be to find way to make the land profitable. If the land can make a profit by growing crops or cattle then there would be no incentive to sell to developers.
I am reminded of an old Byzantine proverb: “Man has many problems, but a man with no bread only has one problem.” Without the farmer, we only have one problem.
R.M. (Bob) Reis lives in Arlington.
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