1 -m 0-> P _I 8 Almond orchard in front of a subdivision at Keeping the valley green: Manteca in San Joaquin County. a public policy challenge

UC Agricultural Issues Center*

In California’s Central Valley, popu- Although California’s population has single-family residences, and a freeway lation expansion and economic de- shown explosive growth since the 1950s, system that made long commute distances the Central Valley‘s population did not be- feasible. The appearance of high-technol- velopment threaten one of the gin to boom until the 1980s. For several ogy and other new industries in the Valley world’s most productive agricul- decades after World War 11, economic and added to inland growth pressure. tural systems. In 1989 and 1990, population expansion was concentrated During the 1980%the Central Valley’s the UC Agricultural Issues Center around the coastal metropolitan com- population increased 30%.The newcomers undertook the first comprehensive plexes of Los Angeles, San Diego and the Bay Area. During that era, important analysis of the demographic and farmland areas were lost but damage to resource problems that result, as California agriculture was minimized as well as the “government gridlock producers relocated. Dairies and citrus that is one obstacle to their solu- groves from Southern California and fruit tion. The multi-disciplinary project orchards from the Santa Clara Valley moved inland to the Central Valley. Al- involved more than 60 university though the state was rapidly urbanizing, researchers on five UC campuses, agricultural acreage actually increased - as well as other experts from vari- including hundreds of thousands of acres ous public and private agencies. irrigated by the State Water Project. The following report draws heavily In the 1980s, however, a new, inland- oriented pattern of urban growth evolved, on that analysis, “California’s Cen- driven by scarcity of land and spiraling tral Valley - Confluence of prices in the metropolitan coastal areas, Change.” t the penchant of Californians for suburban,

10 CALIFORNIA AGRICULTURE, VOLUME 45, NUMBER 3 As population grows in number and diversity, changing land use may create con- flict, particularly at the borders between agri- cultural and urban areas. At top left, a tractor driver discs a field next to a Modesto subdivi-

commuters. At bottom, an industrial ware- house overlooks fields of barley near Modesto. (All photos by Jack Kelly Clark)

CALIFORNIA AGRICULTURE, MAY-JUNE 1991 11 were diverse - Bay Area commuters, em- ployees in the Valley's growing industrial base, retirees, immigrants from Latin America and Southeast Asia. As a result, a growth-induced environmental crisis is at hand in the once-rural Central Valley. It involves not just land use, transportation and housing, but also air pollution, water resources, wildlands and open space - and, in conjunction with all of these, the future of the agricultural system. Because agriculture and development patterns vary along the length of the Val- ley, they are best viewed as occurring in three distinct regions, shown in figure 1: w The upper Sacramento Valley, with less development pressure so far. B The middle region, under powerful pressure from Bay Area spillover and from its own commercial and industrial development. Of the three regions, it has the smallest average farm size, reflecting both mature development and ongoing parcelization. It also has the most rapid population growth, much of it spreading along freeway-centered corridors. Nearly 10% of this region is already in urban or "rurban" use, ("Rurban" refers to the parcelization of agricultural areas into ru- ral homesites, ranchettes and small farms.) The southern region, center of large- scale, intensive agriculture, with its own rapidly expanding metropolitan areas and with spillover from the Los Angeles basin. So far, the Central Valley's vast agricul- tural economy remains intact, but the trend toward urbanization is clear. If growth in the lower two-thirds of the Val- ley continues at the same rate as in the de- cade before 1986, an American Farmland Trust survey showed that farmland acre- age equal to virtually all the cropland in Stanislaus County will be lost within 20 years. It is likely, however, that the rate of farmland conversion will be even greater than that. Physical, economic, demo- graphic and social forces have encouraged or accommodated to growth in the past, and - despite local pressures to the con- trary - there is little evidence that they will not continue. A recent forecast is for a statewide population increase of 10 mil- lion by the year 2005. Three million or 30% of those new Californians will live in the Central Valley. New times, new problems Although it derives from CaIifornia's four decades of continuous growth, the

12 CALIFORNIA AGRICULTURE, VOLUME 45, NUMBER 3 current crisis in the Central Valley has its blocked by environmental concerns, in- own characteristics: cluding preservation of endangered spe- w This time, there is no outlying area cies.) where agriculture can escape. For the Besides farmland conversion, air pollu- state’s agriculture and for urban develop- tion is another by-product of population ment, the Valley is the last frontier. and economic growth that threatens agri- w City growth in the Valley is moving al- culture and the agricultural-urban rela- most entirely onto intensively cultivated tionship. The geography and weather pat- croplands, with spillover effects on the 10 terns in the Valley make it as potentially million acres of foothill lands that ring the vulnerable to extreme air pollution as the Valley. South Coast air basin. Prevalent ozone lev- w Central Valley farmland extends over els already are causing yield losses in vastly more area than in any of the previ- more than two dozen important Valley ously-urbanized coastal valleys. The Santa crops - more than 20% for melons, beans Clara Valley, for example, filled up with and grapes and from 9% to 15%for alfalfa, houses and industries in relatively few cotton, citrus and potatoes. Just meeting years, destroying agriculture as an eco- today’s moderate state standards for nomic and environmental force. However, ozone would, for example, increase cotton urban areas in the Valley currently cover yields by 10%. about 560,000 acres, equivalent to 7% of its The economic viability of the Valley’s farmland. Doubling today’s population at agricultural system may depend on con- the same rate of urban land-use intensity trol of air pollution - as will the health would bring the total urbanized area to and quality of life of all Valley residents. 14%.That would be a substantial loss, but What about the water resource? Wher- millions of acres of cropland would re- ever the Valley’s new residents settle, on main. There will be a long, perhaps an in- former farmland or in the foothills, they definite, period when expanding cities in will be ”upstream” of agriculture in terms the Valley will co-exist with vast amounts of water use. They will buy water formerly of open space - mostly farmland. used by agriculture, and they will be able Compared to experience elsewhere in to pay higher prices for it. Where farmland California, therefore, urbanization in the with an adequate irrigation supply is de- Central Valley wiU put less immediate veloped, that water may be available and pressure on the total farmland resource. It sufficient for the new uses. But if competi- will, however, create widespread and tion develops for scarce water, farmers long-range problems involving the mix of will be out-bid and farmland will go dry. agriculture with residential, commercial The current extended drought and cut- Fig. 3 Land under public and private owner- and industrial development. The funda- backs on irrigation water deliveries por- ship in California and the Central Valley. mental question for the Valley’s future is: tend possible constraints on Valley agri- Privately-owned land constitutes 72% of the How can agriculture continue to thrive in culture as population growth continues. Central Valley, compared to 50% statewide. an increasingly urbanized environment? Ground water contamination creates an Because most of the Central Valley’s privately even more immediate conflict of interest owned land is in farms (83%), a growing popu- Threats to land, air, water between Valley farmers and expanding lation will exert increased pressure to convert Prime farmland, the irreplaceable re- cities. Nitrates and pesticides, particularly private agricultural lands to higher intensity source, is under conversion pressure in DBCP, in drinking water sources already nonagricultural uses. many parts of the Valley. Impacts of com- exceed state standards in several parts of muters from the Bay Area already are ap- the Valley. Maintenance of ground water parent in communities as far inland as quality for human use may be a future Modesto. At the same time, regionally-ori- constraint on Valley agriculture. ented growth is taking place in the Sacra- High water tables, salinity and trace el- mento and Fresno areas. Most of the High- ement contamination - particularly natu- way 80 corridor between the Bay Area and rally-occurring selenium - along the Val- Sacramento already is urbanizing; future ley trough and on the West Side comprise development along Highway 99 may cre- another environmental problem with im- ate what has been called a ”multi-nucle- plications for future patterns of agriculture ated linear metropolis.” Within a few and urbanization in the Valley. If the years, commuter spillover may trigger drainage problem is solved, or partially substantial growth along the West Side. solved, the economic and environmental Another possibility is ”new cities” along presence of agriculture in the Valley will the Valley fringe, possibly in the lower be strengthened. If not, even more acres of foothills. (So far, such proposals have been farmland will be lost to salinization than

CALIFORNIA AGRICULTURE, MAY-JUNE 1991 13 Valley’s agricultural open space is not sim- ply undeveloped land, ripe for conversion to other uses, but is already committed to what is, in the broadest sense, its highest and best use -agriculture. However, as population increases, the economic and environmental problems of urban-agricul- tural coexistencewill require changed atti- tudes and practices on both sides. Chances for a favorable scenario de- pend on public awareness of intercon- nected Valley-wide problems and on plan- ning -particularly regional land-use planning. The ideal scenario would in- clude the following elements: w Local communities would operate within guidelines protecting the interests of their neighboring communities and the region as a whole. Regional governments Fig. 4 Generalized profile of land use by economic value. would address certain planning problems Owners of private property have economic incentives to use land for the purpose that promises - air pollution control and transportation, the highest return, sometimes referred to as the highest and best use. However, land use be- for example - which inevitably cross over comes controversial when the use promising highest return confers external costs on other prop- local government boundaries. erty owners or conflicts with societal interests. Then the criterion of highest and best use shifts w Local and regional governments would from one of simply maximizing return to one in which economic return is adjusted for external costs and intangible social values. strengthen and expand ”right to farm” or- dinances. Land preservation programs that allow farmers to operate economically to urbanization in the near future. Vast ar- duced parcel size and piecemeal environ- and yet provide an adequate tax base for eas of waterlogged and possibly contami- mental regulations, among other things. local government are crucial. The fiscal nated soils will create a challenge for land- Undeveloped areas of former farmland constraints facing both city and county use planners. Urbanized areas conceivably contribute little in either economic or envi- governments must be addressed if ”zon- could be located where shallow water ronmental values. The threshold of system ing for dollars” (encouraging development tables prohibit agriculture;however, saline viability eventuallyis crossed and Valley to increase sales tax revenue) is to cease. or contaminated ground could pose health agriculture dies a slow death. w Suburbaniteswould learn to tolerafe or environmentalbarriers. In the other scenario, urbanized areas certain levels of neighboring farm activity, are interspersed with designated and and manage problems of trespassing and Threshold for system damage planned areas of irrigated farmland (and vandalism. Local direct marketing of fresh Localized tradeoffs between urban and occasional wildlands) along the length of farm produce would be encouraged. farmland uses undoubtedly will continue the Valley. This pattern might develop in 1 Farmers in urbanized regions would and intensify. Valley-wide agriculture, either or both of two ways. The first is a emphasize sustainable, low-input prac- meanwhile, has not been fundamentally California version of the “landscape” ap- tices; avoid open field burning, aerial ap- reshaped so far by loss of farmland. A cru- proach used in parts of Western Europe. plication of pesticides and various other cial question in the long run is: What is the Local communities might consider devel- cultural practices; and, if necessary, extent of resource deterioration and what opment patterns that accommodateboth change cropping patterns. are the limits of urbanization beyond farmers and suburbanites, with fingers of w Agriculture would internalize costs of which the agricultural system itself will farmland separating areas of housing and its pollution into the production system, or falter? If that happens, both the agricul- shopping. The second would occur where agricultural pollution control programs tural economy and the Valley’s open- cropping patterns or cultural practices re- might be partially subsidized to achieve space human environment will be threat- quire economies of scale. In these locales, regional environmental benefits. ened. tightly-drawn urban limit lines would Although population growth and other Let us consider two extreme scenarios. separate farmland from city. forces will powerfully influence the fume, In one, an unplanned, sprawling mega- we still have choices. The unprecedented lopolis grows up alongside, or randomly Requirements for change challenge is to capture the benefits of scattered among, vast acreages of non-ur- Because Valley agriculture remains growth while preserving the Valley’s a@- banized land. Without planned protection, strong as a regional system, there is still cultural base and maintaining the quality much agriculture becomes economically time to influence the outcome with public of life for millions of future Valley resi- marginal because of the added costs of re- policy decisions. Much of the Central dents.

14 CALIFORNIA AGRICULTURE, VOLUME 45, NUMBER 3