Farmland Preservation
By Paul Boehlke
"The problem is Idaho is seeing unprecedented growth, right. And it’s not controlled, and it’s not directed, it’s just happening, it’s all based on money, which is fine. It’s a free market, that’s the way things are supposed to be," said Tristen Winegar, Washington County Farm Bureau President.
"The problem is without agriculture you don’t have an Idaho, and I think people have lost sight of that. And so, my entire life everyone has always complained about all these fields getting turned into houses."
Tristan Winegar, who has farmed and ranched this land outside Weiser for generations, expresses his concern.
Idaho Farm Bureau President Bryan Searle agrees:
"Idaho is growing at a record pace all over the state. We see record growth and I don’t know that we’re prepared for that growth and so as that happens, and a farmer or a rancher goes out and he farms and he tries to make a living, you fight the elements of the weather and getting loans from the banker, and all of a sudden somebody comes by and offers a whole bunch of money for your land and you’re thinking, Wow, that’s a lot of money and that could even help me and I could retire on that. And the next thing you know is instead of crops growing we have homes growing."
According to the US Department of Agriculture's most recent data from its Census of Agriculture:
- Idaho lost 1% of its total agricultural ground from 2012 to 2017, which amounts to 117,000 acres.
- That’s a small amount of Idaho’s 11.7 million total acres of farmland, but in areas with rapid population growth, like the Treasure Valley in southwestern Idaho, the loss is more significant.
- Canyon County lost 10% of its farm ground between 2012 and 2017, and Ada County lost 22%.
"Even though the growth is happening mostly here in the Treasure Valley, it’s happening all over the state. This is just where it’s the worst, and so the solution probably needs to come from here, but we need answers from everybody to make that happen," said Winegar.
"I just got tired of everybody saying there’s nothing you can do about it, there’s nothing you can do about it, and I think that there is something that we can do about it and so I decided I wanted to try and explore those ideas. So, I presented it to my board, and I just said is this something we wanted to pursue, and it was an outstanding, unanimous yes, we want to figure something out," said Winegar.