Supervisors OK Idea of Creating Farmland Trust

The Ventura County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved the concept of creating a private Agricultural Land Trust, the first step toward protecting thousands of acres of rich county farmland from urban development.

But the board said it was premature to offer public money to buy development rights from farmers and hold them in trust.

“That would be at least two or three years down the road,” said Supervisor Maggie Kildee, chairwoman of the special committee that proposed the private trust after two years of meetings on the issue.

“We need to go very slowly” to make sure county farmers embrace the voluntary program first, Kildee said.

“The key is finding out how much acceptance there is in the farming community,” Kildee said. “There’s still a lot of skepticism about all this.”

Even then, the public expenditures needed to make the program successful would depend on voter approval of a new countywide tax, she said. And the measure would not even be placed on the ballot unless a public-opinion survey showed “substantial support” for the proposal, she said.

Members of the agricultural trust committee have argued that if development continues to eat away at the county’s farmland, the agricultural industry soon will be too small to support itself.

There are still 100,000 acres of irrigated farmland in the county, but about 15,000 acres have been lost to development over the last two decades. Industry officials estimate that agribusiness companies will flee the county if acreage falls below 70,000.

Under the plan approved Tuesday, a private trust would accept land and development rights through donations and wills. The trust would also apply for grants and work with conservation groups to get the program started.

It would also solicit the cooperation of farmers who own the sprawling citrus groves and vegetable fields of the Santa Rosa and Las Posas valleys and the Oxnard Plain.

Ventura rancher J. Link Leavens, a member of the farmland trust committee, said it will take a few courageous owners to get the program going. Wary of even voluntary government programs to restrict land use, many farmers “will not be interested initially, if ever,” Leavens said.

But Peter S. Brand, a project manager for the state Coastal Conservancy, said farmland trusts have worked elsewhere in California and the nation and should not be seen as pie-in-the-sky propositions.

The conservancy has spent $17 million on just such projects during the past five years, Brand said.

In addition, a Marin County agricultural trust now has 13,000 acres, Sonoma County recently approved a quarter-cent sales tax to preserve farmland and open space, and tiny San Juan Capistrano in Orange County is selling $21 million in bonds for the same purpose, Brand said.

Farmland trusts, Brand said, give farmers in fast-developing areas such as Ventura County “an alternative to relinquishing their farms to development.”

As sanctioned by the Board of Supervisors, the county’s land trust could eventually buy development rights away from farmers, though the property titles would not change hands.

Farmers would benefit because the trust would pay them a portion of the difference between the property as farmland and its value to developers. If the trust paid less than full value for the rights, the farmers could get a break on their taxes, the committee said.

Kildee said she suggested a go-slow approach to a public-supported land trust because voters--already stung by the effects of the recession--are unlikely to support a new tax.

But Supervisor Maria VanderKolk said she was concerned that the county was being too cautious.

“I just hope we don’t move too slowly,” she said. “This is such a precious resource.”