LAKE COUNTY – An issue that could impact the future of agriculture in Lake County is expected to come up for debate Thursday among members of a committee formed to advise the county on agriculture's place in the new general plan.
The meeting of the Agriculture Element Committee will begin at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, July 19, in the Board of Supervisors chambers.
The committee was formed to advise the Board of Supervisors and the county on agriculture as it relates to the new general plan.
Members are James Austin, Ken Barr, Michael Barrett, Ron Bartolucci, Steve DeVoto, Bobby Dutcher, Margaret Eutenier, Bobby Gayaldo, Greg Hanson, Pamela Knispel, Paul Lauenroth, Philip Murphy, Toni Scully, Tim Strong, Victoria Brandon, Tommy Gilliam, Jon Ham, Katherine Harris, Diane Henderson and Joanne Van Eck.
Chuck March, executive director of the Lake County Farm Bureau and one of the people instrumental in getting the committee formed, said the committee is set to discuss several policy issues Thursday, among them minimum parcel sizes for agriculture.
“If it gets to lot sizes, it will be heated,” said March.
It's an issue that has even divided the local Farm Bureau's board of directors, March explained.
Last year, a petition was circulated around the county suggesting that all agricultural land be rezoned to rural residential in the new Lake County General Plan, said March. That, in turn, would allow farmers to sell land which would result lots of ranchettes – with no viable farming – springing up around the county.
Such a policy change would necessarily do away with the 40-acre minimums for prime ag land, which is the current county policy, said March.
All but one of the 46 people to sign the petition were pear farmers, said March, who are reacting to a pear industry that hasn't been very profitable in recent years.
“I think the people signed it just to get the issue out in the open,” March said.
The Farm Bureau board voted to take a position against the proposal, although it wasn't a unanimous vote, said March. “My board was pretty undecided.”
While county planning staff was willing to suggest 20-acre minimums, the Farm Bureau requested the county form the Agriculture Element Committee to advise the county on agriculture.
Community Development Director Rick Coel couldn't be reached Tuesday for comment on where his department stands on the issue.
The 40-acre minimum has been violated in intent by legal loopholes in recent years, spawning a rash of manufactured homes to sprout up where orchards have been recently removed.
The loophole, referred to as "a certificate of compliance," currently allows landowners who can prove a land division existed prior to the county’s subdivision act of 1973, to re-divide land. Because each parcel is allowed to have one home, the number of potential homes increases dramatically as parcel size decreases throughout the ag zones.
March said the county hasn't put a stop to the certificates of compliance, which, in many ways, make meaningless the 40-acre minimums.
The California Department of Conservation's Division of Land Resource Protection's most recent study of Lake County's land use conversion shows that Lake County has 288,362 acres of farmland, of which 48,362 acres are listed as either unique, or of local or statewide importance. That number also includes 15,464 acres of prime farmland.
Committee members debate parcel size issue
One of the people who want to see the ag minimums changed is Ken Barr.
"You can’t mandate what someone will do with their property," said Barr, the single-largest pear farmer in Lake County. “You can only restrict it."
The 37-year veteran of Lake County pear growing owns and manages Adobe Creek Packing Co., one of just two pear packing facilities surviving in the county that claimed five such facilities less than two decades ago.
Barr is also a member of the Ag Element Committee.
"Philosophy has nothing to do with what is going on right now," he commented. "I think there should be a fairness doctrine involved."
Instead of putting the cost of open space on the backs of those who enjoy it, in Barr’s view, the 40-acre minimum would put the cost on the farmers who own it.
"Get off the back of agriculture," he recommended.
"My argument is not ‘ag versus non-ag,’" he explained. "The future of agriculture is in five- and 10-acre parcels."
Of the subdivision restriction to 40-acre minimums, Barr summed up, "I do not believe it’s something beneficial to agriculture."
Barr said just 58 parcels in the agricultural area at issue, namely Big Valley, fit the 40-acre minimum criteria. The average parcel size, he said, is more like 10.
"Take a look at who wants 40-acre minimums," he said. "What they really want is open space."
"If you want open space," he said, "go buy it."
The issue started to come up at the last Ag Element Committee meeting on July 2, said Kelseyville grape grower Steve DeVoto, another committee member.
DeVoto, who is farming the land his parents farmed before him, said there are certain minimum requirements needed for a farm these days, and land size is one of them. That's especially true as cities and farmland grow closer together, and farmers need to control dust, equipment noise and other issues that come with farming.
“Forty acres is about the minimum size for a viable farm,” said DeVoto. “That's the way it's been for years and years and years.”
Go below that, said DeVoto, and you have ranchettes and no actual farming.
DeVoto said he believes that the supervisors chose to add an agricultural element to the general plan because they wanted to see agriculture survive, not die off, which he believes would happen if the agricultural minimums went below 40 acres.
Permanent harm to county's agriculture
DeVoto isn't alone in believing that a change to minimum parcel sizes could cause irreparable harm to county agriculture.
John Gamper, the California Farm Bureau's director of taxation and land use policy, agrees with DeVoto.
Dropping the agriculture minimums “would be the death knell of agriculture in Lake County,” said Gamper.
Parcel sizes of 10 acres or less for prime agricultural land and less than 40 acres for nonprime use is too small for agriculture, according to the Williamson Act, which is a state measure created in 1965 to preserve agricultural land, said Gamper.
The county's 40-acre minimum for prime land is actually smaller than average, said Gamper, who noted that 80 acres for prime and 160 for nonprime are more average.
Other counties have increased their agriculture minimums or are seeking to do so, said Gamper. They include Sutter, which is seeking to increase their minimum orchard zones from 20 to 80 or more; and Humboldt, which in the 1980s raised their minimums from 160 to 600 to protect timber and rangeland.
Many general plans are being updated around the state now, said Gamper, yet parcel size isn't always an issue when it comes to saving, or significantly altering, agriculture. Often, the land is rezoned and then subdivided for other purposes, such as building homes or commercial developments.
And in the case of the Williamson Act, Gamper said increasingly that land is being sold off and becoming home sites, in 40-, 80- and 160-acre parcel sizes.
“It's really a drag,” said Gamper, who added that such home sites creates issues for wildlife, watersheds and fire protection.
March agreed with Gamper that dropping the parcel sizes would devastate local agriculture.
“Ultimately, I don't think a five-acre parcel size would fly,” he said.
March said the Ag Element Committee's final position on the parcel sizes will be “just a recommendation” that the Board of Supervisors could accept or overturn.
E-mail Maile Field at
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