This community opinion was contributed by Paicines resident Clark Stone. The opinions expressed do not necessarily represent BenitoLink or other affiliated contributors. BenitoLink invites all community members to share their ideas and opinions. By registering as a BenitoLink user in the top right corner of our home page and agreeing to follow our Terms of Use, you can write counter opinions or share your insights on current issues.
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San Benito County voters recently received another glossy flyer from the “Campaign to Protect San Benito” urging voters to “Save our Farmland, Vote YES on A.” According to this flyer, San Benito County has “Lost 43% of its Farmland” because, “for decades, local elected officials let developers pave over our farmland to build residential subdivisions…” The solution to this problem, according to Measure A proponents, is to require “a vote of the people before farmland can be turned into residential subdivisions.”
As alarming as these claims sound, they are not supported by the facts. Indeed, the flyer’s claims are not even supported by the very sources cited in the flyer. Contrary to the claims of Measure A supporters, agriculture is not threatened in San Benito County, and to the extent there has been a loss of certain categories of farmland in the county (if at all), this loss cannot be due to residential development, for the reasons set forth below.
San Benito County comprises approximately 893,000 acres. According to the most recent USDA data (2002), 61 percent, or approximately 544,000 acres, of the land in the county is used for farming. Most of the county’s farms (55 percent) are less than 50 acres in size. Most importantly, USDA data shows that the total acreage used for farming in San Benito County increased by five percent between 2017 and 2022.
Looking at the California Department of Conservation (DOC) data cited in the Measure A flyer shows that the flyer’s claim of a loss of 43 percent of San Benito farmland is based on a purported reduction in four subcategories of land categorized by the DOC as “Important Farmland”- Prime Farmland, Farmland of Statewide Importance, Unique Farmland, and Farmland of Local Importance, currently totaling approximately 52,000 of the county’s 893,000 acres. While it is true that the total acreage of land in San Benito County categorized in these four categories has decreased since 1984, this reduction does not mean that this land has been built over or lost to residential development, as the flyer claims. DOC clarifies that, to be designated as Prime Farmland or Farmland of Statewide Importance, the land must have “been used for irrigated agricultural production at some time during the four years prior to” the date the land was mapped. That is, if the land is not used for irrigated agricultural production for any reason during the four years prior, the land loses its designation as Prime Farmland or Farmland of Statewide Importance and is thus “lost” as such. This “loss” can be due to a variety of factors other than development, as Benitolink recognized in an October 27, 2000 article:
These figures don’t necessarily mean that the best farmland is being directly converted to urban areas. According to the DOC’s Division of Land Resource Protection, “fluctuations in Prime Farmland acreage can be from a wide range of causes. Those include commodity prices, international competition, water availability or delivery, water prices, fuel prices, proximity to processing facilities, agricultural pests, flooding events, increasing land values, farm labor availability and salaries/benefits, and a combination of those factors.”
As to the flyer’s claims that the loss of farmland in San Benito County is due to “residential subdivisions,” the DOC data cited in the flyer also proves this claim to be false, for at least two reasons. First, the DOC data shows that the amount of land used for agriculture in the county has decreased by only 2.5 percent, from 687,000 to 669,000 acres, over the thirty-six years between 1984 and 2020. Secondly, and most importantly, the DOC data shows that, for the same time period (1986-2020), the amount of urban and built-up land in San Benito County increased by less than 5,000 acres, from 4,390 acres in 1986 to 9,332 in 2020, and currently comprises approximately one percent of the county’s total acreage. Thus, any “loss” of 39,000 acres of farmland in San Benito County cannot be due to an increase in urban and built-up land of only 5,000 acres.
In sum, the facts and data do not support Measure A proponents’ claims of a “loss” of 43% of San Benito County’s farmland, or that this “loss” is due to residential development. Voters should reject this misinformation-driven initiative and vote “No” on Measure A.
Clark S. Stone
Paicines, CA