If this disparity proves nothing else, the Lake County Farm Bureau newsletter notes, it is a clear indication of how far the county has to go to get up to speed in putting agriculture on equal footing with other components of its General Plan.
The task of accomplishing that objective is in the hands of an Agricultural Element Advisory Committee recommended by Farm Bureau and appointed by the Lake County Board of Supervisors in April 2006. The committee has met once a month since then.
Its members are from a wide spectrum and include Bobby Gayaldo, directors Bob Dutcher, Paul Lauenroth and Tim Strong and advisory member Margaret Eutenier.
Other members are James Austin, Ken Barr, Michael Barrett, Ronald Bartolucci, Greg Hanson, Pamela Knispel, Philip Murphy and Toni Scully. Alternates are Victoria Brandon, Tommy Gilliam, John Ham, Katherine Harris and Diane Henderson.
In fairness, more than 25 years have passed since this region's General Plan was last updated.
And it's anybody's guess as to what priorities drove the lesser-populated Lake County of early 1980.
"I can't speak for what the situation was in 1981, but I'm sure we'll have a considerable amount of (new) information in this update," said Community Development Director Rick Coel.
The county's agricultural community's chief concern for the ag element in the new General Plan and the future of the county's 28,166 agricultural acres is the minimum acre parcel size for agricultural parcel size.
The Farm Bureau supports a 40-acre minimum and has publicly lobbied for that size since 2004 when it issued a policy document, including its position on acreage among a dozen recommendations. The document grew out of a facilitated special meeting on land use on March 13, 2004, involving the Farm Bureau and subject experts.
The Farm Bureau supports an expedited merger process that would halt the use of Certificates of Compliance to divide agriculturally zoned lands to non-conforming smaller than the 40-acre minimum.
The 40-acre minimum, however, is far from being officially accepted. Possibly as much as a year, even though the bulk of the General Plan is expected to be introduced in May or June and adopted in July, according to Coel.
Optional possibilities for a minimum parcel size are five, 10 and 20 acres. The decision rests with the Ag Element Committee, which Coel said he expects will take from six to 12 months to be delivered.
Coel, who provides county staff representation to the committee, hazards a guess that its eventual recommendation for minimum acreage will be from 20 to 40 acres, but he adds, "It's hard to say. I'm still trying to read the committee and what their ultimate recommendations will be."
The Farm Bureau opposes the 20-acre minimum option, which it says would do little to protect agricultural lands already split and would affect about 25 percent of the parcels already zoned ag.
"It seems the majority wants to keep it at 40 (acres), but diversify the allowed acreage land use to include other soils,” said Coel.
The most significant change of designation would be the county's 9,000 acres in vineyards, currently zoned rural because, as Coel notes "they are not on high class ag soil" and, as a matter of course, don't need to be.
"They're not on Class 1 ag soil. They tend to be class 5 or 6, but they're still ag," he said.
"It's appropriate obviously to expand the definition of agriculture,” Coel added. “We need to include those sites which right now are zoned rural land instead of agricultural."
Among other concerns that the Farm Bureau has weighed in on and which the committee will be deciding upon is defining what fits the parameters of agritourism, projected to be of growing importance in the next decade; buffers that protect agricultural operations; the strengthening of the county's "Right to Farm Ordinance"; and compliance with the protective Williamson Act in future development.
E-mail John Lindblom at
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