Like all of you, I’ve heard a lot about Measure A recently, including questions about the funding portion allocated to agricultural land protection and criticisms of the Marin Agricultural Land Trust.
As stewardship program manager for MALT, I am responsible for doing site evaluation assessments for our agricultural conservation easement projects. I collect comprehensive data on the natural resource value of agricultural land in four main categories: ecological health, thriving community, climate resilience and prospering agriculture. We score each property on its protection value, the risk of it falling out of agricultural production and the potential for enhancing all these conservation targets.
Recently, county officials listened to the community to carefully consider how best to allocate funds to help keep Marin an extraordinary place to live, work and play. Marin supervisors expressed broad support for agricultural land protection and stewardship activities. I appreciate and agree with that assessment. Marin should maintain the 20% allocation with a greater percentage being made available to the Marin Resource Conservation District. We must continue to protect and steward this land we all know and love.
I spend a lot of time with people who own and work on Marin’s agricultural lands. What I see makes me realize that there are a lot of basic misconceptions about Measure A, Marin agriculture and MALT.
Allow me to try to dispel some of these misconceptions.
Misconception: Funding agricultural land protection through Measure A amounts to misuse of public funding because it provides no public benefit.
Public access isn’t synonymous with public benefit. Experiencing the tangible benefits of public access is easy – hiking on beautiful trails or enjoying a sea view picnic on a rolling hillside. The public benefits of well-tended agricultural land, while less obvious, are at least as important. They include:
• Contributions to the local economy as employment, production of local food and fiber products, as well as tax revenues
• Greater ecological health of the lands through increased biodiversity, carbon sequestration, stream and creek rehabilitation, as well as wildfire protection
• Prevention of large-scale development and its accompanying environmental problems, such as increased pollution, traffic, as well as fire risk, along with loss of precious natural and scenic values.
Misconception: Agricultural conservation easements line the pockets of wealthy landowners.
Farming and ranching are difficult, economically risky activities, even in the best of times. If local agriculturists can’t make a living from their land, conservation easements might offer the only, or at least the best, alternative to selling to developers. Easements provide a lifeline, not a gravy train.
Misconception: Measure A funds allocated to protecting farmland go to MALT. MALT acts as a conduit for the funds, not a recipient.
As a land trust, we can apply for Measure A funding toward the purchase of agricultural conservation easements. If the application is accepted, money transfers from the county directly to the landowner. In every easement transaction, MALT matches those funds at least one to one from private donations or public grant programs through state or national conservation agencies. At no point do the funds become the possession of MALT.
Misconception: We need to focus on wildfire protection, not protection of agricultural land.
This is a false dichotomy. Well-stewarded agricultural land is crucial for protecting the region from devastating wildfires. Well-managed rangelands diminish fuel loads through livestock grazing, increasing water infiltration and by promoting lush, healthy riparian zones that can slow a fire’s progress.
Just this year, in Lucas Valley, a wildfire raced through an area of open space and public trails, coming close to a residential area. When it hit grazed ranchland, the fire slowed and firefighters gained control.
Misconception: MALT has already protected enough land in Marin, so there’s no need to invest in additional easements.
About 54,000 of the county’s more than 100,000 acres of privately owned agricultural land are protected by MALT conservation easements. The unprotected land remains vulnerable to development and fragmentation, as well as the attendant threats: loss of habitat and biodiversity, increased erosion and buildup of wildfire-stoking fuel loads.
Measure A is one way for county residents to contribute directly to our shared vision for a healthy Marin for all to enjoy. Let’s not allow misconceptions to undervalue the importance of investing in our agricultural lands. Please join me in urging supervisors to keep Measure A’s farmland protection allocation at 20%.
Eric Rubenstahl is stewardship program manager for the Marin Agricultural Land Trust.
