Cesar Sanchez

Final Essay

June 07, 2007

Eco-literature: English 380

Professor Marx

Irreparable Damage

I was born and raised in Reedley, a small agricultural community in Fresno County, California. Known as ‘The World’s Fruit Basket,’ Reedley is surrounded by some of the most rural agricultural lands of the central valley. I grew up admiring the ever-changing fruit trees throughout the year. In the spring, the pink flowers of the plum trees complement the white flowers of the peach trees forming a breath-taking mosaic. In the summer, the plum, peach, nectarine, and cherry trees are decorated with their colorful fruit, making your mouth water as you imagine their juicy sweet flavor. The fall season makes me speechless. The green, red, orange, purple, and yellow colors blend together to make an enchanting and radiant rainbow. In the winter, the branches of the deciduous trees stretch towards the gray-white sky, creating a symphony with the wind.

Along with this admiration, I grew up respecting all agricultural lands. They define our rural communities and help nurture us in many ways. I have learned to see them in Aldo Leopold’s words, “as a community to which we belong.” But unfortunately, there are people that don’t see agricultural lands the same way and, as a result, have cleared them out for housing developments, creating irreparable damage to our society.

It hurts me to see that the agricultural lands that I grew up admiring and that contribute to our nation’s food supply are now being replaced by endless rows of cookie-cutter homes and massive amounts of impervious surfaces. What is worse, this decline of farm and rural lands is an issue that is threatening our society nation-wide.

Wendell Berry, the acclaimed author and advocate for agricultural rights, shares the same concern about this decline of farm and rural lands. In his essay, ‘Failing our Farmers,’ Berry states,

“For the past 35 years I have been concerned with the issues of farming and rural decline. Some of my concern has had to do with my failure to understand this nation’s farm policy. I’m not referring to any one administration’s farm program, but to farm policy as demonstrated by the past 40 to 50 years of accelerating damage.”

These accelerating damages include losing the farm’s topsoil to erosion and losing farms to development of chemical-dependent monocultures and animal factories. However, the most current damage accelerating the decline of our agricultural lands is the excessive construction of housing developments. I’m not referring to the well-thought out, well-designed, and sustainable developments. I’m referring to the quick profit, cookie-cutter, no green space, and poorly thought out developments, which are more commonly built.

So, why are the farmers selling their farmland to these developers? Don’t they know the value that their land possesses? And the developers, don’t they have any respect for the land?

Reason One: Farmers are losing money and are forced to sell

Farming is an extremely risky profession. Every year farmers pray for their crops to grow healthy and productive, but the fact is they never know what is going to be the outcome. They could be successful and make money one year and be unsuccessful and lose money the next year. Sad to say, farmers in the central valley have been losing more money than they have been earning due to their crop’s low market value. This has been happening for the last few years and it is making the farmers worried. Most of the farmers have been paying more for the maintenance of their crops than what they gain in profit. Henry (Hank) Huizinga, a local farmer and a close friend of our family, has lived in our small city of Reedley for the past 30 years. In a recent conversation with Hank, he mentioned that a box of 24 peaches was costing him 15 dollars to pack and was only getting 8 dollars in the market. He mentions that this financial struggle is hurting a lot of farmers, forcing selling their agricultural land. Even though the farmers value their land and don’t want to sell, they are forced to in order to avoid losing more money. During these desperate times developers slink into the picture and offer a reasonable price for agricultural lands that farmers can’t resist. Once the developers purchase the land, they approach the county to change the zoning from agriculture to residential and they almost always succeed.

Reason Two: Greed

Unlike farmers that are forced to sell, some farmers sell their agricultural land to make money. In many cases, these farmers paid approximately $20,000 for their land 30 to 40 years ago. Now the same land is worth approximately $400,000 to $600,000. Farmers have realized this tremendous equity that their land has accumulated and want to sell to get their hands on it. For one they won’t have to worry about the risky lifestyle of being a farmer anymore and secondly they will have enough money to live comfortably the rest of their lives. These farmers have the option of selling their land to other farmers, but usually prefer selling to developers to make more money. Obviously, developers adore the idea of buying agriculture land that is already leveled. It makes construction of their cookie-cutter homes and impervious parking lots a lot easier. Developers don’t mind paying $600,000 for a 20-acre land parcel. They will construct every house 2 feet away from the other to fit as many houses as they can to get the most profit out of the land. They will probably sell each house for $350,000, average of what new homes are currently selling for in the valley. So, for 100 homes at $350,000, do you think developers care about the land or about creating sustainable and smart growth communities? No! All they care about is making MONEY. Blinded by their greed, developers ignore the true value that these agricultural lands possess. They ignore that the majority of these lands consist of Soil Class I, the best agriculture soil for growing crops. They ignore that these lands help feed local, regional, state, national, and sometimes international populations. They ignore that these lands help define our rural communities and bring aesthetic and cultural value to some of us. Is it possible that these people have rocks for hearts?

Reason Three: Pressures of Urban Growth

Our nation’s population continues to grow every year, not to mention in California. The federal government and private developers are running out of land within urban cores and are expanding into the countryside to build new housing developments.

The problem with this expansion into the countryside is that the majority of the land is

rural and agricultural, which means that the government and private developers start looking for agricultural land that is for sale. If there is none for sale, the government and private developers will do everything that they can to buy agricultural lands. For instance, the government uses eminent domain to forcefully buy land. Just when a farmer decides to keep his land and overcome the crop’s low market value, he is visited by government officials who inform him that the government needs his land for “public use” and that in exchange will get a “just compensation,” usually what the farm will appraise for. What the farmer does not know is that this “public use” refers to building tract homes for low and medium income families. Under these circumstances, farmers are forced to sell their land, even if they don’t want to. Otherwise, they will get into litigation, which in most cases owners never win because the government has every right to take their land with a “just compensation.”

These three reasons explain why agricultural lands are being replaced by housing developments. The following are some ways that I think could help reduce this irreparable damage:

· When farmers are faced with a difficult crop market value, they should consider substituting some of their crops with crops that are being sold well in the market. Consider propagating a new distinctive fruit variety or other possibilities before selling.

· Convince federal, state, and city governments to protect agricultural lands from ever being developed.

· When farmers are faced with difficult times, government should collect a smaller tax percentage to relieve financial concerns from farmers.

· Have the government provide seasonal grants to farmers for operation and maintenance of crops.

· Developers and decision makers should practice and implement sustainable and smart growth design principles. For instance, use porous surfaces to avoid water runoff, build vertically rather than horizontally to use less land, and provide pocket-parks to reduce hardscape surfaces.

The following are Aldo Leopold’s suggestions from his book, ‘A Sand County Almanac,’ on how to respect the land:

· Develop a land ethic that allows you to change “from a conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it. It implies respect for his fellow-members and also respect for the community as such.”

· See Conservation Education beyond as an enlightenment of self-interests. Learn that “conservation is a state of harmony between men and land.”

· Learn to “see land as a community to which we belong. There is no other way for land to survive the impact of mechanized man, nor for us to reap from it the esthetic harvest it is capable, under science, of contributing to culture.”

Aldo Leopold’s suggestions on how to respect the land are ways that could also help reduce the clearing of agricultural fields and help greedy farmers and developers see beyond making money.

In his book, ‘A Sand County Almanac,’ Aldo Leopold states that people are so concerned with their materialist desires and economic growth that they forget about natural things. He states,

“Our bigger-and-better society is now like a hypochondriac, so obsessed with its own economic health as to have lost the capacity to remain healthy. The whole world is so greedy for more bathtubs that it has lost the stability necessary to build them, or even to turn of the tap. Nothing can be more salutary at this stage than a little healthy contempt for a plethora of material blessings.”

Greedy farmers and developers should stop thinking solely about making money; they should start seeing the land with respect and love. These farmers and developers must also realize that they are reducing our food supply for the future and that some day the entire society will suffer from food shortage. Why create damage that we will regret later? Wendell Berry in his essay, Farming and the Global Economy, explains,

“Now that the issue of sustainability has arisen so urgently, and in fact so transformingly, we can see that the correct agricultural agenda following World War II would have been to continue and refine the already established connection between our farms and the sun and to correct,

where necessary, the fertility deficit. There can be no question, now, that that is what we should have done.”

Let’s not make the same mistake again. Let’s leave our agricultural lands as agricultural lands before we look back and say, “that is what we should have done.”

I still go back to my small agricultural community often to visit my parents and friends. While I am there, I take some time to show my son the ever-changing characteristics of the fruit trees and to explain to him the significance that the agricultural lands possess. Maybe one day, he could have the same admiration for agricultural lands as I do. But, what if there are not any agricultural lands left for him to admire? Just the thought breaks my heart. I can’t let this happen and neither should you. That is why we need to come together and protect our agricultural lands from being cleared out and replaced by housing developments. We must learn to protect our agricultural lands for those who follow.

Works Cited

Berry, Wendell (1970). Essays ‘Failing Our Farmers’ and ‘Farming and the Global Economy.’ Ecoliterature: English 380 Reading Handouts. Retrieved on 5/10/2007 from:

http://cla.calpoly.edu/~SMARX/courses/380/Berry/berryfail.html and http://cla.calpoly.edu/~SMARX/courses/380/Berry/farming.html

Leopold, Aldo (1949). ‘A Sand County Almanac.’ Ballantine Books, New York. Pages xviii, xix, 240, and 243.

Huizinga, Henry (2007). Farmer in Fresno County.