As of 2007, Virginia had 8.1 million acres of farmland.
That might sound like a healthy chunk of land, but it's been shrinking over the past two decades. Virginia lost the following farmland acreage between the past four U.S. Census of Agriculturetakings:
· 379,325 acres between 1987 and 1992;
· 68,785 acres between 1992 and 1997;
· 128,796 acres between 1997 and 2002; and
· 521,000 acres between 2002 and 2007.
U.S. farmers participate in the census every five years. They determine how many acres they are farming by using the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s definition of a farm: any operation that sells at least $1,000 of agricultural commodities or that would have sold that amount under normal circumstances.
But while the census can track a drop in farm acreage, it does not capture information about what happens to land that’s no longer considered farmland.
The National Resources Inventory does; it’s conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service. While recent state-specific information is not available on the NRI Web pages, national findings indicate U.S. cropland acreage declined 12 percent between 1982 and 2003. The inventory also found that between 1997 and 2001 almost 9 million acres were developed—46 percent from forestland, 20 percent from cropland and 16 percent from pastureland.
The Farmland Information Center Web site ranks Virginia 11th on its list of 20 states that lost the most prime farmland between 1992 and 1997. A map on the site shows areas that had high-quality farmland and experienced high levels of development in Frederick, Loudoun and Shenandoah counties; along much of the Interstate 95 corridor; and in much of Floyd, Patrick and Henry counties and the southern portions of Pittsylvania and Halifax counties.
“There are parts of Virginia where prime farmland is also extremely desirable land for residential or commercial development,” said Lindsay Reames, assistant director of governmental relations for Virginia Farm Bureau Federation. “If we lose all of the prime farmland in an area, the remaining land tends to be property that requires more resources, such as water, to be productive farmland.”
Virginia’s Office of Farmland Preservation, a division of the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, cites the following reasons the commonwealth is losing working farm and forest land: an aging farm population; a large number of farmers without retirement or farm transition plans; and more farmland being taken out of production.
A decrease in farmland does not necessarily mean that land has been developed, but it does mean that land might be more vulnerable to development. Developing any farmland or forest acreage puts pressure on surrounding farms and forestland, as it brings in a population that does not necessarily see the value of agriculture or forestry to the community.
Even if farmland is not sold but is taken out of production, a community can suffer, Reames said. “Land taken out of farming threatens a locality’s ag-infrastructure. If the land is lying fallow, that means farmers are not buying inputs such as seed, fertilizer and machinery. That hurts suppliers that are needed to keep agriculture in the community. If you lose the infrastructure, you’ll eventually lose the farms as well.”
Population growth itself is not the problem,” Reames continued. “In many instances the problem is a failure to anticipate growth and plan for it so that rural communities’ character is preserved. And that ultimately puts U.S.-grown food and other farm products in the path of something that’s potentially out of control.”