The Disappearing Farmlands

Wasatch Front urbanization replaces farmlands

LeRoy W. Hooton, Jr.

March 18, 2001

St. George, Utah – Farmlands along the Wasatch Front are fast disappearing as urban development pushes further into the suburbs, a phenomenon affecting most western urban areas. The plight of farming was a subject discussed at the Utah Water Users Association meeting held this past week. Growing costs, regulations and urban expansion onto historic farmlands are forcing more farmers off their tractors. The market value of their farmlands and water rights is a strong inducement to sell out.  The most desirable and fertile soil is usually the first to go in an irreversible loss of productive farmland.

There is growing concern about who is going to grow the crops that feed the nation. As prime farmland disappears, the nation’s food production shrinks.  Imports will fill the gap. Some liken this new foreign dependency to our dependency on foreign oil.  Food in the future may shape national policy as oil does today. 

However, a more immediate concern is the disappearance of open and green spaces. “This raises the question, particularly in the West, are water policies taking away the open and green spaces?” asks National Water Resources Association Executive Vice President Tom Donnely. “Where is the balance between the growing population and the open spaces [that farming provides]?”  As the urban population consumes the landscape, “urban sprawl” threatens to take all of the open spaces, affecting the very quality of life values modern society strives for.  Farmlands have always been part of the open space that distinguished the difference between urban and rural lifestyles. However, declining farmlands and the purchase of water rights for urban development may actually perpetuate urban sprawl.  In the more dense urban areas, farmlands have totally disappeared.

Population growth along the Wasatch Front during the past two decades has made a noticeable change in the landscape.  In a February 19, 2001 Deseret News article entitled, "Is Utah losing croplands?" Larry Lewis, information officer for the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food is quoted, "All you have to do is look out your window and see what's going on. We're in the business of trying to protect agriculture. Prime farmland that can't be replaced is being subdivided at high rates."  The Deseret News article provided the following quantification of the problem: "Between 1892 and 1997, Utah's total cropland dipped from 2.03 million acres to 1.67 million … and cultivated cropland dropped 45 percent, from 1.29 million acres in 1982 to 705,000 acres in 1997 -- the fourth largest drop in the nation."

During the past two decades, the price of irrigation water in Salt Lake County has dramatically increased. In the past 10 years a share of irrigation stock has risen in value one hundred fold from $35 to over $3,000. Faced with development pressures and economic choices, farmers are enticed by the high value of their land and water rights to get out of the marginal business of farming.  Municipal water suppliers exert additional pressure on irrigation water.  Where developers seek both land and water, municipal water suppliers seek irrigation water for conversion to municipal water to serve the growing population resulting from urban development. 

Even for those who want to continue farming, it's getting more difficult to maintain the canals and ditches to irrigate their crops.  With water transfers out of the canals, there is a corresponding reduction of flow in the canal.  Mutual irrigation companies usually require carriage flow to remain in the canal, but overall the volume of water is reduced.  Recent legislation (SB 37) may have tipped the scale a little bit more in favor of more water transfers. Under this legislation an individual shareholder has a process by which to make a change application to change the point of diversion and nature of use.  There are two sides to the legislation. The change may make more water available for other beneficial purposes, but it may also hasten the demise of mutual irrigation companies and farmlands.  

Perhaps the conversion of farmland to subdivisions is a natural evolution of land use. Population projections to the year 2050 indicate a population of over 5 million people living along the narrow Wasatch Front.  To accommodate this many people will require urban development of enormous proportions.  Land and water will be at a premium.   Like most major western urban areas such as those in California, development ultimately replaces much of the farmlands. California officials estimate that its population will increase 53 percent from 32 million to 49 million people by the year 2020. Experts predict a continuation of the loss of farmland in California and elsewhere in the west as urban growth competes for limited land and water.

Land and water policies will continue to shape the Western United States and Wasatch Front into the future.  The results of these policies will determine how future generations live, eat and enjoy the benefits of water.