Loss of farmland accelerates in Virginia

SWOOPE — Doug Riley's pastures and fields have been tended and tilled here in the Shenandoah Valley by four generations of his family.

His father died at the farmhouse on the homeplace. His grandfather died while in the dairy barn, and his great-grandfather died while feeding the pigs.

But Riley is probably the last of his clan who will work the rolling farmland framed by the Alleghenies near Swoope, in Augusta County just west of Staunton.

"We don't have any young people coming along to do the farming," said Riley, whose 26-year-old daughter, Rosalea, teaches agriculture at Buffalo Gap High School and whose 23-year-old son, Jonathan, works in a machine shop and makes good money. Neither wants to farm full time, though both help part time.

"I can't pay him $20 an hour," Riley, 52, said of the practicality of his son working on the farm with him. "I've never made $20 an hour in my life myself."

Riley's predicament is the reality for many farmers and translates into an ongoing, long-going trend — not only is there less farmland in Virginia than ever before, but it's disappearing at a faster rate than ever before.

A new Census of Agriculture report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that Virginia lost 521,000 acres of farmland from 2002 to 2007, the largest decline in the past 20 years. That's more than the combined land area of Richmond and the counties of Chesterfield and Henrico.

"We've been losing 50,000 to 70,000 acres on average every year for decades," said Jonah Bowles, the agricultural risk analyst for the Farm Bureau. "Now it's accelerating."

Some lost farm acres have been rolled into conservation programs, but most were used for development.
Powhatan County, for example, lost almost half its farmland, dropping from about 55,000 acres in 2002 to about 30,000 acres in 2007. In Louisa County, the amount of farmland slipped from 87,275 acres in 2002 to 78,512 in 2007.
Still, there are some bright spots in rural Virginia.

In select areas, farmland increased from 2002 to 2007 as land was repurposed, Bowles said.

"We don't ever bulldoze a housing development or a commercial area to create farmland," he said. "But we can clear woodland, or we can bring farm acres out of a conservation program and put it back into active agriculture."
Also, productivity at Virginia's farms rose to near record levels in 2007 and 2008, fueled in part by better technology and equipment that increases yields.

In Amelia County, for example, farm-production values increased from $51.6 million in 2002 to $68.7 million, while the number of farms and amount of farmland remained virtually unchanged. There, a number of farmers hold contracts with Tyson Foods Inc., which provides them with poultry that they raise for Tyson, and as poultry prices have increased in recent years, their productions values have skyrocketed, too, Bowles said.

The state also is seeing an increase in very small farms — those generating $1,000 or less a year.
One other bit of good news is that Virginia, despite its farmland losses, is still farmland rich.
"We have a little over 8 million acres in farmland," Bowles said. "It's not like we're running out of it."

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Goochland County's farm acreage is one of the few in central Virginia that increased from 2002 to 2007, from 52,335 acres to 59,292 acres.

Still, Goochland farmer Wayne Pryor is worried about the half-million-acre drop statewide. He has operated a beef farm in the county for more than 30 years and is the head of the Virginia Farm Bureau.

"I'm very concerned about why we've lost that much farmland," he said. "I have a huge concern about it continuing."

The reasons for the loss of farmland — which goes to housing and commercial developments or becomes fallow — are complex.

"In our area in Richmond and Goochland, development is what's eaten the farmland up," Pryor said. "I know a lot of farmers that have gotten out of it for retirement and nobody in the family wanted to farm it. Sometimes it just sits idle."
Pryor said his son, who is in college, "right now doesn't know if he'll come back and farm full time."

Bowles said the loss of farmland can be attributed to a number of factors.

"Part of it is it's very difficult to enter farming because of the high cost of land and the high cost of equipment. There's also volatility in prices and income for the farmer," he said.

That's the one factor that stands out to farmers such as Riley. There's little money in farming, especially given the long hours of labor required.

Bowles said profitability varies widely for Virginia farmers based on a variety of factors including debt, marketing strategy and risk management.

One singular statistic bears out the economic reality of farming in Virginia: More Virginia farmers are working part time off the farm than ever before. In fact, 57 percent of farmers said their primary occupation was off the farm, compared with 54 percent of farmers in 2002.

"If I was 20 years younger, I'd get out of farming," Riley said. Around him on his 400-acre homestead is the evidence of hard work — tractors, bailers, hay rakes, flat-bed trucks, and a turkey house with tons of droppings that will soon need to be cleaned up.

Riley is a jack of all trades — doing his own shearing, veterinary work and mechanical work — because he can't afford anybody but himself.

"Every day, there's something different. You stay out there until you can't go on no more," he said. That lifestyle — with its stark reality of working until physical exhaustion — may not be appealing to the young.

Other farmers echo Riley's thoughts.

"Don't get me wrong — I loved farming," said Chuck Ahrend, 82, who farmed in Rockingham County before moving to a Mennonite retirement home. "But it's a tough life."

Ahrend's son became a chiropractor, and his two daughters had no interest in farming.

"But I sold my land to other farmers, and it will stay agricultural," said Ahrend, who raised cattle, sheep and hogs in Singers Glen.

Ahrend, like Riley, thinks the economics of farming is the main problem. "The only way to save agriculture is to make it profitable. Otherwise, you're only going to keep the diehards in it. Right now, the only way you make money in farming is to sell the farm."

Bowles said that is a common refrain he hears, especially among older farmers. "The older someone gets and the more volatile things are, the greater the incentive to cash in on the farm and have a steady income," Bowles said.

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The average age of a principal farm operator was 58.2 in 2007, compared with 56.7 in 2002, according to census figures.

That means that more farmers are retiring and selling their land — not necessarily to other farmers.

And despite the souring economy, the statistics indicate that farmland is still selling for a good price. "Last year, while residential prices went down in Virginia, farmland actually went up a bit," Bowles said.

But owning valuable farmland doesn't necessarily help a working farmer.

"How do you save farming?" Riley asked. "It's a good life. It's a hard life. But it would be a lot more enjoyable if you didn't have to worry constantly about paying the bills."