Agricultural Land

FARMLAND, well managed and productive, can provide a bounty of benefits for an increasingly suburbanized society. It is food and fiber, pastoral open space, environmental protector of waters and wildlife.Maryland's 20-year-old Agricultural Land Preservation Foundation buys development rights from farms, keeping land in agriculture. Half of the counties have their own programs, often linked to the state effort that has permanently preserved nearly 150,000 acres.Yet the state continues to lose 30,000 farm acres a year to development.

I am writing in response to Sen. E.J. Pipkin's letter to the editor in which he called me the state's land planning czar ("O'Malley is waging war on rural Maryland," Feb. 26). The senator may think such name-calling and his "war on rural Maryland" slogan is strategic for him. However, it is bad for rural, suburban, and urban Maryland. This type of rhetoric damages the "One Maryland" approach that has helped bind all of the state's communities together for many years. As a matter of fact, the state provides more assistance per capita in rural counties than it does in the more suburban and urban counties in Central Maryland.

With nearly 400 acres of crops, forests and streams, Foggy Bottom Farm on the outskirts of Hampstead offers a compelling argument for land preservation. Just across Houcksville Road from this rural vista dominated by an 18th-century farmhouse is a new subdivision of colonials with two-car garages on sprawling, manicured lots. "Land preservation is the only hope, if Carroll County wants to keep its rural character," said Wilson Lippy, who has lived at the farm all his 71 years and is recently retired.

There have been Mullinixes farming in western Howard County for more than a century. Nearly three decades ago, as a mark of their commitment to working the land, the family sold the development rights on their farms to the state of Maryland. Now, though, brothers Mike, Stephen and Mark Mullinix say they want out. Not out of farming, necessarily, but out from under a state program that limits how they can use their land - a move that worries preservationists. "We're trying to generate income from other things, and [state officials are]

Concerned about the future of Maryland's largest industry, the state plans an 18-month study of agriculture as the first step toward developing a strategy to preserve and promote farming, sources said yesterday. The study is in response to a request from Ronald A. Guns, chairman of the House Environmental Matters Committee, who wants the state Agriculture Department to develop a 20-year plan to safeguard Maryland's farm industry. "We want to start the study as quickly as possible, hopefully this summer," said S. Patrick McMillan, a special assistant to state Agriculture Secretary Henry A. Virts.

Wayne Armacost's family has farmed the land around Upperco for seven generations, but the Baltimore County dairy farmer worries that the fabric of his agricultural community is starting to unravel.Farms in his area are being squeezed by townhouse developments to the north and million-dollar estates to the south. Local tractor dealers have closed or have switched to selling lawn mowers for the new homes springing up.And these days, Armacost must summon a repairman from Hagerstown when his milking equipment breaks or travel to Westminster for tractor parts.

ORLANDO, Fla. - The hired hands are milling around the barn in the gray light of dawn, getting ready for another day in the saddle, when Jennings Overstreet pulls up. In this rustic corner of Osceola County, Fla., miles from the rush-hour masses swarming to the north, morning is unfolding to an almost-forgotten rhythm amid the smells of sweet hay, leather and damp earth. A dog barks at the stir of activity; the horses snort and shuffle impatiently. Down on Lake Tohopekaliga, in front of the house Overstreet's father built in 1935 for $800, a flock of sandhill cranes feeds noisily.

The Maryland Cooperative Extension's Harford County office and the Harford County Planning and Zoning Department's Agricultural Land Preservation Program will conduct a free "Agricultural Land Preservation" seminar from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. March 12 at the extension's office, 2335 Rock Spring Road, Forest Hill. Scheduled speakers are lawyer Jay Young, real estate appraiser Aimee O'Neill, Harford County Agricultural Land Preservation Program administrator Bill Amoss and Harford Land Trust representative David Miller.

Impressed with the Carroll County commissioners' willingness to compromise on a contentious zoning law, the state secretary of planning has delayed a Jan. 15 ultimatum that the county change the law or lose $400,000 in state money for farmland preservation. Secretary Roy W. Kienitz met with the commissioners and county planning staff members yesterday and left feeling "that there's every sign we're moving in the right direction" in negotiating changes to a law many say allows out-of-control development on the county's agricultural land.

The Carroll County Farm Service Agency reminds landowners that all foreign people who have bought or sold agricultural land in Maryland are required to report the transaction to the agency within 90 days.To avoid federal penalties and fines, foreign owners of U.S. agricultural land must report their holdings, acquisitions, dispositions, leases of 10 years or more and land-use changes."The report is required by the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act, which is still in effect," said Kelly Hereth, county executive director.

On a recent Sunday afternoon, Polly Pittman clipped nets over the ripening grapes in the vineyard she hopes will ensure that one of Anne Arundel County's oldest family farms continues to have a future. "Basically, the McMansions start on the other side of these trees," Pittman said. "We think of ourselves as the last frontier of agricultural development in Anne Arundel County. " Nearly three centuries after her ancestors started tilling this hill in Davidsonville, the 550-acre Dodon Farm remains the county's largest working family farm.

Anyone thirsting for a Howard County winery tour will have to wait at least one more month to begin planning. Legislation to allow wineries in Howard County was tabled Monday night by the Howard County Council, the second consecutive year that the Ulman administration legislation has run into trouble. Council members who asked for the delay said more time is needed to iron out unresolved issues over relatively small preserved parcels of land in residential areas. Some worry they could attract too many people and too much traffic if used for wineries.

Two families in financial distress are asking Baltimore County to buy the development rights to their farms so they can preserve them as agricultural land, a county official said. Owners of the two separate tracts, comprising nearly 132 acres in Cockeysville and Maryland Line, have qualified for a six-year-old program designed to preserve land that faces an immediate threat of being sold for some non-agricultural use, said Wally Lippincott, natural resource manager for the county Department of Environmental Protection and Resource Management.

A leading legislator said yesterday that the state should consider selling revenue bonds to raise money to preserve farmland as open space -- a growing need, he said, as baby-boomer farmers retire. State Sen. Thomas M. Middleton, a Charles County farmer and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said many of the farmers he knows will be retiring in the next five to 10 years, and their children don't want to be farmers. To keep that land from becoming housing developments, Middleton said, the state needs to make sure it has a large enough pot of money to compete with developers.

Land preservation seminar planned The Harford County Department of Planning and Zoning will hold an Agricultural Land Preservation Seminar from 8 a.m. to noon March 30 at Highland Presbyterian Church, 701 Highland Road in Street. The speakers will be David Thompson, chairman of the Agricultural Preservation Advisory Board; Bill Amoss, administrator for the Harford County Agricultural Preservation Program; Jay Young, an attorney with Brown, Brown & Young; and Brian Lutters, a certified public accountant with Clifton Gunderson LLP. Topics will include county rural land-use goals, land preservation easement options, partnerships with land trusts, land preservation and estate planning; and land preservation income tax tools.

Seminar to focus on preserving land The Harford County Planning and Zoning Department will sponsor an Agricultural Land Preservation Seminar from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Nov. 29 at Highland Presbyterian Church, 701 Highland Road in Street. Presenters include Bill Amoss, administrator, Harford County Agricultural Land Preservation Program; Elizabeth Weaver, Maryland Agricultural Land Preservation Program; Stacey Schaefer, Maryland Rural Legacy Program; Jay Young, attorney, Brown, Brown and Young; Brian Luttres, certified public accountant, Clifton Gunderson LLP; Molly Brumbley, general real estate appraiser, Farm Credit; Peg Niland, Harford Land Trust; and Debra Bowers, Manor Rural Legacy.

Reacting to widespread criticism, Carroll County commissioners asked yesterday for a meeting with county planners and farmland preservationists to discuss how the county will implement a recently passed zoning law that many say promotes development on farmland. Donald I. Dell called for the meeting, saying the commissioners should at least respond to questions and concerns that have arisen in the past month. Several county staffers expressed reservations about the wording of the law yesterday to the commissioners.

How much of Harford's rural agricultural land should be preserved? How much should be developed? What restrictions should be placed on development in agricultural areas?Those are some of the questions county planners will be asking the public in the next few weeks as they try to develop a miniature master plan this year to guide growth inHarford's rural areas.The county Department of Planning and Zoning has scheduled two public meetings to discuss issues affecting the county's rural areas, including plans to create a transfer of development rights program.

The world is as still as the pickets that line a winding path to Mary Kinder's mammoth farm. The two-story Cape Cod is boarded up, the white dairy barn is closed and few cattle remain for the caretaker to watch over. Just off Sudley Road in West River, Henry and Mary Kinder spent a generation raising cattle and growing old together on about 400 acres of rolling fields. All along, they resolved to protect this place at the headwaters of Rockhold Creek, to keep the encroaching hustle and bustle from knocking on their front door.

High farmland prices - already considered the biggest threat to the future of Maryland agriculture - are continuing to rise as land becomes scarcer. Driven by one of the hottest real estate development markets in the nation, Maryland farmland value rose 12.7 percent last year to $8,900 an acre, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture survey. That figure is for land that is sold and continues to be used for farming, an increasingly uncommon scenario in Maryland, say state agriculture officials.