Specialty farms like Robbie East's Fields of Flowers in Loudon County, are a major trend in Virginia agribusiness. Photo by Mark Rhodes

Where has All the
Farmland Gone?
Suburban sprawl is gobbling up agricultural land and
forcing farmers to raise crops and livestock that
generate more cash per acre.

By LISA K. GARCIA

Robbie East says she is living her dream when she hands cutters to suburbanites who snip their own flowers on her Loudoun County farm. East wishes she could have started her flower farm sooner, but the former home economics teacher knows that it took today's changing demographics to make her business plan work.

East is taking advantage of a rapidly growing suburban population that is pushing up land values and pushing aside traditional agriculture. Her niche farm produces a higher-return product on fewer acres — a growing trend in Virginia agribusiness.

The next 15 years will be critical as a predominantly gray farm population retires. One Virginia Tech report anticipates a continuation of the trend toward fewer farms, larger farms and less agricultural land overall. The report also predicts that the state will see fewer row crops, more part-time farming, more attention to value-added products, and more niche players like East.

In Loudoun County, traditional farming is on the decline. The National Agricultural Statistic Service's 1997 census notes, for instance, that the number of dairy cows fell from 2,880 in 1982 to 500 in 1997. In their place, specialty farms are sprouting up to provide "agritourism" and "agritainment" in the Northern Piedmont, an area the Virginia Farm Bureau calls "a tourist's paradise." Parts of Loudoun County sit just 20 miles from the nation's capital, making it a great getaway.

It is not surprising, then, that city workers who live in suburbia are attracted to East's farm. The pick-your-own operation sits on five acres from which visitors can enjoy views of the surrounding Blue Ridge Mountains. It boasts a gift shop in a circa 1865 barn and two pot-bellied pigs named Wilbur and Petunia. Visitors grab straw hats, bug repellant, cutters and a quart jar before venturing into nearly two acres of flowers to snip a $6 bouquet.

Although specialty farming represents a growth area, it belies the larger issue: The total number of agricultural acres is falling in Virginia. According to the American Farmland Trust, which works to preserve farmland, Virginia has lost prime land at the rate of 45,000 acres per year during the past decade. There were 184,000 farms in the commonwealth in 1910; as of 1997 there were just over 41,000.

Mary Heinricht, director of the mid-Atlantic region for the American Farmland Trust, says local planners often view farmland as "white area on the map," which is also often labeled "undeveloped." The implication is that it eventually will be a subdivision or an office park.

*  *   *

The antithesis of the small flower farm in Northern Virginia is the giant hog farm in Southside Virginia.

The Halifax County Board of Supervisors is embroiled in a fight with local contract hog farmers — those who have exclusive agreements with producers — who have requested permits to increase the number of hogs on their farms, in some cases to more than 10,000 animals. When the board denied the requests, the farmers filed lawsuits that claim, among other charges, that the county is violating the state's Right to Farm Act.

It's the classic agricultural clash: Suburbanites accustomed to neighborhood covenants move to the country, where they aren't always enamored of their barnyard neighbors. The Right to Farm Act, however, limits when farms can be deemed "nuisances." It says that the proximity of a nonagricultural use — such as a subdivision — does not make illegal the sights, smells and sounds of farming. As long as a farm is in an area zoned for agriculture, localities cannot require special-use permits for the operation.

In recent years, however, the act has come under attack as state legislators attempt to repeal it or change its wording to exclude confined animal-feeding operations such as those in Halifax. At the same time, grass-roots organizations are pressuring local governments to limit such operations.

Swine and chickens are the targets. It is interesting to note that as fights escalate in Halifax, the number of hog farms there decreases. In 1992, Halifax counted 70 hog farms with 3,725 hogs and pigs. By 1997, the number of farms dropped to 35, but the number of animals nearly tripled to 10,359, according to the 1997 Census of Agriculture. Hog farms have disappeared rapidly statewide, according to Virginia Tech research, because "about half the hogs in the state are owned by one major producing company, resulting in the number of independent swine producers being down dramatically compared to 20 years ago."

Bitter arguments over large-scale hog farming have spread throughout Southside and even to one county where there are no large-scale hog operations — yet.

Andrew Green is the only contract hog farmer in Lunenburg County, and he represents the eighth generation of his family to live and farm there. As a child, Green helped his father raise anywhere from 120 to 160 squealing piglets to slaughter-sized hogs. Now he contracts with Warsaw, N.C.-based Carroll's Foods to raise about 1,500 piglets that he ships elsewhere to be raised to slaughter weight. "Contract farming is about the only way you can stay afloat farming," the 39-year-old says. "Between profit and foreclosure, that is a very thin line."

Although Green's farm had to grow to remain profitable, his operation is small compared with hog farms that house 10,000 animals. But Green's neighbors still complain about noxious smells. Environmentalists warn of possible water contamination from manure, and local politicians have crafted zoning ordinances meant to keep large-scale hog farms out of the county.

Al Troianello says a public hearing on large-scale hog farming in Lunenburg County drew more than 200 people. "It's inevitable. If you don't take a stand in your community, they [large-scale hog farms] will be on your doorstep in the morning."

Troianello is chairman of the Organization for Concerned Citizens of Lunenburg County, a group he says has about 500 active members in a county that claims just 12,400 residents. The group's mission is to keep what it calls "hog factories" out of the county. A former New Jersey businessman, Troianello retired to the county a decade ago to enjoy country life. He has about six steers grazing on his land.

Green says groups like Troianello's do not understand the benefits of contract farming. Those include, not only a guaranteed paycheck, but healthier animals and meat products for the consumer. Green also doesn't buy the environmental argument: His four wells have shown no signs of contamination, and the manure from his lagoon is safe enough to be used as fertilizer on his fields. He even takes issue with complaints about nose-numbing smells — once a manure lagoon is "seasoned," he says, the odor drops dramatically.

"What I'm doing isn't hurting them," Green says. "I'm trying to be productive, not destructive. I'm not going to do anything to my land that will hurt me."

*   *   *

Most farms aren't preservation projects, they're businesses. Wayne D. Purcell says Virginia will dedicate a declining number of acres to farming in the future, not for lack of land, but for lack of economically competitive products.

Purcell, an agricultural economist, coordinates the state's Rural Economic Analysis Program at Virginia Tech. "We're not anywhere close to a critical zone that as a society we have to think about what we're doing every time we take an acre away from a farm," Purcell says. But in order to maintain farmland and open space in our state, he says, we'll have to subsidize smaller, family farms.

Virginia Beach, for example, has a farmland preservation program, and Ralph Frost, 75, was among the first to sign up for it. He wanted something to pass on to his children and grandchildren, and he wanted to keep the subdividers at bay. "Instead of growing children and houses, I'd like to keep the land like it is," he says.

Without the city's help, Frost says it would have been nearly impossible to preserve his land's agricultural character. "Corn, wheat, and soybeans are cheaper and are all down at the same time now," Frost says. He can't compete with Midwestern and foreign producers. "And hogs [are] cheaper than when I was raising them 40 years ago; they got under 10 to 12 [cents] a pound and it costs about 40 cents a pound to raise them."

Purcell says the state should expect a "farm crisis" in the next two years: Farms will be forced into bankruptcy and foreclosure for a number of reasons, he claims. In 1996, the federal government began phasing out several subsidies and quotas. Once the government lifted those controls, farmers grew too much. Overproduction drove prices down. Then a three-year drought reduced yields, and the collapse of Asian markets decreased overseas demand.

"The worst of all scenarios is that you have drought and poor yields in the presence of low prices, which is exactly what we've got," Purcell says.

Crisis or no crisis, the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services predicts 70 percent of the state's farmland will change hands in the next 15 years because the average age of farmers is 56.4 years. As young people shy away from farming, a significant number of retired farmers will be forced to sell their land for nonagricultural uses.

Suburban sprawl also encourages farmers to sell by increasing the value of their land. Purcell says farmers from Northern Virginia asked Virginia Tech experts what they could grow to keep their farms profitable. When the researchers found out the land was valued at $10,000 to $12,000 an acre for development, Purcell said the answer was simple: "There is nothing you can grow."

*   *   *

The biggest problem farmers face is that much of their wealth is in the land. "It is hard to inherit and keep it because of taxes making it next to impossible for young farmers to come in," says Heinricht of the American Farmland Trust.

Finding a profitable product is the first step, but there are also programs that allow farmers to make money off the land's development potential without turning it into a subdivision.

Some localities are willing to purchase the development rights to agricultural land to preserve the green space and subsidize farming at the same time. Melvin Atkinson, who coordinates that type of program in Virginia Beach, says agriculture is the largest industry in the state and the third largest in his city. "We only have about 30,000 acres of cropland left and we're trying to establish enough to sustain the farm community and support infrastructure like Southern States," Atkinson says. "We've already lost our tractor dealerships."

Several states have centralized farmland preservation programs and backed them with millions of tax dollars, but Virginia's limited efforts are local. Virginia Beach leads the state with its 1995 Agricultural Reserve Program. The city's goal is to buy development rights to 20,000 acres and keep sprawl from spreading south. So far, 4,000 acres are in the program.

Atkinson says that by purchasing development rights, the city creates perpetual easements and curbs sprawl while maintaining private ownership. Support for the idea was strong enough to pass a one-and-a-half cent real estate tax hike to pay for the program.

Residents don't see it as an expense, however. By curbing growth, the community expects to save money. Local governments spend about 20 cents on services for every $1 in taxes paid on farmland, according to one study cited by the Virginia Farm Bureau. In sharp contrast, local governments spend more than $1.20 on services for every $1 in taxes paid on residential property.

"It takes $4 million to run a high school here, and it takes $3 million each year to run [the program] to purchase easements. We are going to save the city hundreds of millions of dollars," Atkinson says.

Heinricht of the American Farmland Trust says Virginians should expect little, if any, prime farmland to be left in the state in 200 years if current trends continue. Her organization hopes to stop that from happening with a state-funded program that would set aside $30 million annually to purchase development rights. There are state easement programs, but in those the property owner grants the development rights and in return pays lower property taxes. They don't actually sell those rights.

Purchasing development rights is just one tool. Communities use zoning laws to help maintain open space, as well. They can delineate service districts — areas where the community will extend services such as water and sewer. In the 1980s, for instance, Virginia Beach established "the green line" across which it would not extend water and sewer services.

A lower tax rate for agricultural land is another important tool. C.L. "Boots" Ritchie of Fauquier County says without land-use taxation he could not stay in farming. "The farm I live on we bought in 1941 for $3,350 — 200 acres. And today the taxes on it are about twice that every year. Without land-use [taxation] we would be out of business."

*   *   *

Virginia agribusiness faces an uncertain future. Bill Dickenson, assistant commissioner for the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, believes farmers will have to increase their income by adding value to their products and by forming more cooperatives. "You have to have a two-pronged attack, because if you don't have the business, then it won't matter if you have the land," Dickenson says.

Agribusiness, however, is still a big chunk of the Virginia economy: It provides one in every 10 jobs and generates $36 billion in annual sales. More than 11 percent of the gross state product stems from agriculture, according to 1998 data from Dickenson's agency.

But suburban sprawl will continue to infringe upon rural areas. Bradford F. Mills, an assistant professor in Virginia Tech's agricultural economics department, says that 80 percent of Virginians now live in metropolitan areas. And more than half of the nonmetropolitan residents live in counties adjacent to a metro area. People may gape at commuters in Northern Virginia who drive 60 to 90 miles each day, Mills says, but it is cost-effective for them to do so.

If high housing costs persist in metropolitan areas, people will continue to move farther from the cities where they work. And the only farms that will remain economically sound will be the big corporate spreads. "We have gone from having independent farmers producing tomatoes to almost total corporately controlled, large-acreage production," one Virginia Tech study reports.

Heinricht isn't surprised. "Farming's gone from a way of life to a business," she says. "The [farmers] that are still in business are good business people."