Losing Ground
July 7, 2024 Leave a comment
Land utilization and farming came into view during the past few months.
This spring, two housing developments sprung up near my home. Both residential sites are located on a small amount of previously open and undeveloped acreage. Multi-level multi-family townhomes were built on both sites.
The site nearest my home has ten three-story multiplexes. Three units are six-family across and seven units are five-family across. I imagine that from a drone’s aerial view the development would look like ten brown Monopoly hotels all crowded onto a single board property.
As of today, all of the townhomes are sold except for two. And that has me wondering why anyone would spend the kind of money they are asking to live in a townhome on a densely occupied tree-less lot next to a busy state highway and across from a bowling alley and surrounded by commercial enterprises including a car dealership, a cell phone store, and fast-food restaurants.
The other housing development, just down the road from me, is built on one corner of an intersection.
There are seven two-story structures – four are duplexes and three are single family townhomes. The second story space is reduced by a double-pitched roof, making it a small bedroom or an attic with a window.
The seven buildings are arranged three-in-a row facing three-in-a row: duplex – single – duplex with one single family townhome sitting at the end facing down between the two rows. The townhomes are bunched together on just a handful of acres. I can walk across the property in forty seconds.
Between the three units in a row there is roughly twelve feet of grass. Between the front doors of the two rows of units that face each other there is roughly twenty-five feet of grass with a sidewalk like a main street going down the middle. A driveway circles around the back of the seven duplexes to connect with the garages. And that, not the once grassy open space, is what one sees from the intersection.
The small white townhomes are odd-looking – like play houses built for a close-knit family of dolls. I imagine little people living there.
Both of these nearby housing projects had me wondering about land use. What was presented to the city. Did the city actually agree to use up these open spaces for these quirky looking residential units? Did the city want more tax revenue and so they OK’d these revolting developments?
I understand the need for new housing and new development. I understand that developers will develop and city planners will plan. What I don’t understand is jamming things together and a lack of aesthetic judgement. The loss of open pastoral space and the filling of it with replicative boxes touched me in some visceral way. I need to explore this in another post.
Another bit of land use, or maybe I should say land abuse, came into focus these past months as I watched the first three seasons of Clarkson’s Farm – that’s Jeremy Clarkson’s Diddley Squat farm.
According to Jeremy Clarkson | The Jeremy Clarkson Fansite
Jeremy Clarkson is best known for his work as a presenter on the BBC TV show “Top Gear.”
“Top Gear” become synonymous with adrenaline-fueled challenges, witty banter, and heart-pounding car reviews.
JC ventured into agrarian life with his TV series “Clarkson’s Farm,” which debuted on Amazon Prime Video in 2021. The series follows Clarkson as he attempts to run a 1,000-acre farm in the Cotswolds, despite having no prior farming experience. The show provides an honest, humorous look at the challenges of modern farming, from uncooperative weather to complex agricultural machinery, showcasing Clarkson’s journey of successes, failures, and learning alongside his charismatic farmhand, Kaleb Cooper.
I thoroughly enjoyed watching Jeremy Clarkson’s Amazon TV Show – Clarkson’s Farm. I learned a bit about farming. Clarkson deals with crops, animal husbandry, a huge number of regulations and trying to eke out a profit. I found the program far more interesting than a farming documentary.
Note: Clarkson, who is quite a character, habitually punctuates his setbacks and unpleasant surprises with a curse.
WHAT DOES A FARMER THINK OF CLARKSON’S FARM? (youtube.com)
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Land Use:
From an AGWeb report By SARA SCHAFER July 29, 2022:
From 2001 to 2016, the U.S. lost or compromised 2,000 acres of farmland and ranchland every day. That adds up to 11 million acres of farmland that has been paved over, fragmented or developed, according to research by American Farmland Trust.
If that trend continues, and another 18.4 million acres is converted between 2016 and 2040 — an area nearly the size of South Carolina . . .
“Nearly half of the conversion will occur on the nation’s most productive, versatile and resilient farmland,” says John Piotti, president of American Farmland Trust.
Surface Pressure: U.S. Losing Farmland at Alarming Rate | AgWeb
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Is the U.S. Running Out of Farmland?
Here’s an Ambrook Research Podcast w/Sarah K Mock, a freelance agriculture writer, podcaster, and author of Big Team Farms and Farm (and Other F Words) who answers that question.
Advocates are sounding the alarm — we’re losing millions of acres of farmland, and it’s an existential threat to our food supply. How worried should we be?
Is the U.S. Running Out of Farmland? | Ambrook Research
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James and Helen Rebanks talk about raising sheep and cattle in the Lake District. James describes the landscape where their families have lived for six hundred years, and how they have begun practicing regenerative agriculture as a way of restoring the land that recent conventional agriculture had damaged. He gives details about the sheep and cattle herds and the grazing systems they’ve established.
Then Helen describes what led her to write her book on the work of the farmer’s wife, and addresses mothers, who are often the ones making choices about food that are linked to questions of sustainable agriculture.
PloughCast 82: Regenerative Agriculture in the Lake District with James and Helen Rebanks
The PloughCast: a podcast from Plough Quarterly
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A July 1, 2024 Indiana Capital Chronicle article reports that . . .
Indiana lost about 345,700 acres of farmland to other purposes between 2010 and 2022, but agricultural productivity still increased, the state found in a study released Monday.
Most of it was lost to residential development around the edges of cities and suburban areas, according to the Indiana State Department of Agriculture (ISDA).
The state’s five biggest farmland losers included Allen, Elkhart, Jefferson, Knox and Monroe counties.
Lawmakers last year tasked the Indiana State Department of Agriculture with creating the inventory.
The agency recommended the following:
- Due to a steady increase in population and continued economic growth, ISDA recommends the legislature pass legislation directing ISDA to update the Inventory of Lost Farmland every five years, starting in 2029 for a report to be published in 2030.
- Consider prime farmland and its location in Indiana including the total number of acres in the state. According to USDA, in 2017 Indiana had approximately 12.56 million acres of prime cropland, pastureland, forestland, and other rural land.
- Involve local units of government in the farmland preservation conversation. Indiana is a homerule state, and most land use decisions are made at the local level. No two counties are the same and neither are their comprehensive plans, zoning ordinances or land use decisions.
- Consider what is an alarming level of lost farmland acres as it pertains to food security. When should a county, state or the country be concerned?
- Consider advances in technology and innovation that have allowed farms to produce more with less acres.
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Regenerative Farming
Regen: the next decade – FAI Farms
Wilder Doddington is at the start of a hundred year project to bring more nature back to the Doddington Estate – working to restore ecosystems to benefit people and nature. In this programme ffinlo Costain is joined by Wilder Doddington’s Isobel Wright and the independent farm advisor, Liz Genever, who’s working with Isobel and advising on cattle management. The conversation ranges from the exciting activity at Wilder Doddington to a discussion about some of the more controversial aspects of the rewilding movement.
Where the wilder things are – FAI Farms
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Be aware: The over ten million illegal aliens who have invaded our borders will overload healthcare systems in the U.S. These systems will go bankrupt. Taxpayers will be expected to make up the shortfall.
The report states that the Biden administration funneled tens of millions of taxpayer money to facilitate illegal entry into the U.S. and also provided “support services” to illegal foreign nationals “at the expense of border security and public safety.”. . .
A separate Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services report found that “emergency services for undocumented aliens” added up to $7 billion in fiscal 2021 and $5.4 billion in fiscal 2022, with taxpayer money funding at least $8 billion in improper Medicaid payouts (10% of the nation’s total of $80 billion).
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A Man of Fortitude:
The decision had been widely expected after the former nuncio to the United States refused to participate in the trial against him, saying that he “did not recognize the authority” of the dicastery or its prefect, Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, or Pope Francis. (Emphasis mine.)
Archbishop Viganò excommunicated for schism | America Magazine
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Health – there’s a certain point in your life when you make a shift:
I Had NO Idea This Spiked Blood Sugar (youtube.com)
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“Walk Like A Joe Biden” – (Walk Like An Egyptian Parody) | Louder With Crowder (youtube.com)
Dogmatic adherence to Leftism makes you anti-science, racist, and sick in the head:
Reality:
Cindy Wity 