From Cropland to Subdivisions

Sometimes things sneak up on you.  Gradually, slowly, things around you change and you don't even notice.  For some reason on the drive home the other day, I turned the radio down and began looking out of the window and noticed building taking place.  That is a good thing.  People need jobs.  Jobs provide money for families to purchase necessities, provide sustenance, engage in commerce and keep the cogs of our economy turning.  Those families launch their kids out into the world and the cycle continues.

What I noticed on each side of the road, was farmland being taken out of production and being sold primarily for homes to be built on. The photo below is right off of I-10 and shows a sugar cane field that has been sold and is being converted into a large, master-planned subdivision. Work is in the midst of being done, digging ponds, setting drainage, building roads.  Lots are being sold.

This photo is a bit closer to home off of Hwy 26.  It shows a parcel of land I judge to be around 80 acres.  It was in rice production for as long as I can remember, but is now fallow, overgrown with ragweed.  The yellow thing you spot in the middle is a Century 21 Realty For Sale Sign.  This land, I presume, will soon be subdivided and new homes will sprout up where rice formerly grew.

Progress, I guess.  The photo below is right in front of our home.  It has been fallow, but was previously in rice and soybean production.  The parcel of land in the background has lots for sale with homepads ready for new homes to be built for families fleeing the city in hopes of their kids attending the small rural school.  The land in the foreground where you see the tractor working has been planted in soybeans this year, but will soon have homes cropping up where crops once grew.

From the 2012 USDA AgCensus Report I learned the following:

In 2012, just over 40 percent of all U.S. land was farmland. The amount ofland in farms essentially held steady between 2007, when the last agriculture census was conducted, and 2012. In that same five-year period, however, the number of farms in the United States declined, and average farm size increased.

From that same report:

The United States had 2.1 million farms in 2012. This was 4 percent fewer than in 2007, continuing a long-term decline in the number of farms.

We see a revolution taking place.  Fewer farms with larger farm sizes.  In effect, corporate farms.  The family farm is slowly going extinct.  Agricultural research has doubled crop yields.  Technology has enabled fewer farmers to be able to manage vast acreage.  Our farmers are so efficient, able to feed the United States while also exporting commodities worldwide. 

While from a business perspective, this is an assuredly positive development.  But the stewardship of the land, I fear, will suffer.  Family farms had people with a vested interest in the land.  Land passed on from generation to generation.  I'm old fashioned.  Such "progress" saddens me.

I can remember working so hard to clear farmland to plant, picking up pine knots, piling them up to burn, clearing tallow trees and pine trees to make way for cropland to plant on "rested land."  It was hard work.  Land like this is now being paved over, making way for homes and strip malls.  It will never be cropland again.  Empty Wal Mart bags will soon be blown by the wind, littering land that once was productive cropland.  I never want to see this happen to our farm.