Farmland Habitat Stewardship Benefits Farmers and Native Species
By Benjamin Wallace
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In this same spirit, the California Wilderness Coalition has launched the Private Lands Stewardship Initiative. With hundreds of California's native species listed as threatened and endangered, and valuable agricultural lands rapidly being lost to development, both our natural and agricultural heritage are in peril. Rather than accept the notion that agriculture and imperiled species are incompatible, we aim to create policies that reward habitat stewardship on farmland, benefiting farmers and species in common.
Farmers and conservationists are working together in communities all across the state to develop restorative agricultural practices. For example, Central Coast ranchers Julie and Joe Morris practice management intensive rotational grazing in an effort to prevent soil loss, improve productivity and restore native grasses. Phil Foster, a farmer in San Juan Bautista, has eliminated chemical inputs and is restoring native vegetation to make field borders more attractive for wildlife.
With the help of the Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF), almond growers in the Central Valley are practicing biologically integrated pest management to promote soil health, prevent pests and reduce reliance on chemical inputs. By approaching agricultural lands from a perspective of ecological as well as economic opportunity, these individuals are helping to restore natural functions on working land in a way that is compatible with the practical and economic necessities of farming and ranching.
Opportunities like these will be highlighted in a forthcoming report by the California Wilderness Coalition. This report proposes a suite of recommendations that, if enacted, will deliver powerful new incentives to restore ecological vitality to California's farmlands, rangelands and forestlands. For example, we propose a new model for stewardship agreements that would preserve intact habitat on private land while providing financial security for the landowner. We highlight new incentives such as "green payments," regulatory assurances, and marketing initiatives that can help agricultural producers restore habitat and initiate beneficial stewardship practices they otherwise would be unable or unwilling to perform. We are proud to be releasing this report with CAFF's endorsement.
In order to advance proposals in our stewardship report, we are building partnerships with grassroots organizations, such as CAFF, Resource Conservation Districts and other local stakeholder organizations. Through grassroots organizing and statewide coalition building, we aim to provide a conduit for landowners, producers and conservationists to inform and influence the development of a coherent private lands stewardship policy for California.
We approach these ambitious goals with a sense of reverence for those farmers, ranchers and conservationists who have long pioneered the responsible land stewardship ethic we wish to promote today. After all, government initiatives offering optimistic visions of the future have often led to unintended consequences that many people are now trying to undo. While practices such as clean farming, the widespread use of chemical inputs, the removal of restorative crop rotations, the consolidation of family farms, and the industrialization of agricultural practices have greatly increased the efficiency and volume of agricultural output, they have also distorted our relationship to agriculture and the natural world. A farmer who had to vacate leased farmland for a subdivision summed it up this way: "…the urban sprawl just got too much. You couldn't spray. You just can't farm that close to people with houses and lawns. It would be like someone going into a General Motors plant and building a house."
When we think of our farms as the ecological equivalent of a General Motors plant; when subdivisions supplant the farms that feed our families; when farms and homes can no longer exist on the land together; it is clear we have relinquished the vital connection between agriculture, community and the natural landscape.
The Private Lands Stewardship Initiative promotes a vision for the future of California's private lands that restores the ecological function of working agricultural lands, preserves the livelihood of local producers and reconnects people to their food supply. Farmers and conservationists, many of them CAFF members, are already putting this vision into action at the local level. This spirit of partnership must be raised to a higher level and reflected in the policies that will shape California's future.
At the end of the day, the stewardship of California's agricultural landscapes-- and the degree to which they enhance or degrade the larger ecosystem-- depends on countless decisions made by individual farmers, ranchers and timberland managers. These decisions reflect their relationship to the land and the economic and policy factors that influence their options. Many producers feel their options are limited to a choice between stewardship practices that diminish profitability or production practices that damage the land. If we value the full range of benefits agricultural lands can provide, however, we will create new opportunities for farmers and ranchers to prosper while enhancing habitat. Working together, the environmental and agricultural community can create a whole new set of options.
Only then will the tide turn on the loss of California's native species and the threats to our agricultural heritage.
