In recent years I’ve watched Lawrence’s agricultural borders shrink as our population grows. Thousands and thousands of farm acres rezoned and sold for urban development with nary a whimper. This may be momentarily beneficial for the farmer and the developer, but in fairly short order we will wish we had that farmland back.

Why? Is it nostalgia that makes me think we’ll miss our beautiful farms once they’re gone? Is it an aching environmental conscience that makes me think our quality of life will be poorer when our green space goes the way of gray? Or is it just plain selfishness coming through, vain hopes that other folks’ development dreams won’t spoil the view from my own farm kitchen window?

All of these are true in part. But what really motivates me to take a stand for our shrinking farmland is the other green concern: money. Hear me out on this one.

We are in an energy crisis – again. This time, unlike other decades, there seems to be the legislative will to change our fossil fuel ways. And though it’s not a new idea, farming for fuel seems to be a lead solution as our nation searches for alternatives to oil. Any state with agricultural capability is quickly turning its interests to growing crops for the burgeoning biofuel industry. We’ve just learned that a new biofuel plant is coming to Emporia because of its wealth of corn and soybean fields. We’ve also learned that corn is now such a hot commodity that farmers can’t buy enough corn seed to plant all the acres they’re converting from food production to fuel.

From corn to soybeans, to sugar beets to switchgrass, for better or worse, energy crops are in our nation’s fuel future. That is why, when President Clinton spoke to this issue in Manhattan earlier this year, he went so far as to say agricultural states like Kansas may be America’s energy salvation, helping us move away from dangerous foreign oil addiction to the safer state of energy independence. America’s energy crisis is Kansas’ energy opportunity, he said. And that is where money comes in.

Now if anyone is deserving of more money it is the average American farmer who often has to take a job off the farm just to pay the mortgage. So who can blame the farmer who opts to join America’s new agricultural energy venture, growing fuel instead of food? There’s money to be made there. A lot of money. One wonders, though, in the new scheme of things, who will grow our food and where will they grow it?

That is where our local farmland becomes especially important. We don’t know how this new energy market will shake out. We don’t know how many acres will be planted for fuel rather than food, but what we do know is it takes farmland to do both. Until we know more about where our fuel comes from and where our food comes from we should preserve the farmland we have – especially the land closest to us. Choosing locally grown food may be trendy now, but the time may come when buying locally grown food is not just a matter of personal taste but necessity.

The good news is that our local growers can feed us well. Our flourishing farmers market is proof of that with its ever-increasing diversity of products. And most Lawrence grocers have a wide variety of locally grown products already on their shelves. But how will our local food industry grow to meet future demand if its land is targeted for industrial development like the thousands of acres of farmland included in the newly designated “Urban Growth Zone” just north of the Kansas River? Ask any local farmer. He or she will tell you the land in that particular zone is some of the most fertile land we have because of its proximity to the river. They’ll also tell you once you build on that land, you can’t get it back.

I don’t doubt that Lawrence planners have a need to make way for urban development. And I don’t doubt it’s a tough decision for farmers who have to choose what to do with their land. But I do doubt the wisdom of intentionally targeting new industrial zones on land supremely suited for agriculture, an already established industry that, by the way, can handle the occasional flood. Which is a point worth mentioning here since five hundred acres of this expanded Urban Growth Zone is designated by FEMA as flood plain! (See CPA-2003-3, Amendment to Horizon 2020.)

Farmers have always been valuable to our community though they rarely get their public due. But these days, if we don’t see the immense value of our farmland AS FARMLAND we are shortsighted. And if we don’t recognize our farmers as a hot commodity in and of themselves we are blind. When we choose to lose local farm land to industrial and urban development we not only risk losing our place at the alternative energy table, we diminish what might go on our kitchen table: local food grown by local farmers, a precious resource that can’t be replaced.

– Nancy Thellman lives with her family on a small hay and cattle farm in northeast Douglas County. Her neighboring farmers produce corn, soybeans, wheat, sod, fresh vegetables, fruits and nuts as well as sheep, fish, poultry, cattle and dairy products, all within a short drive from downtown Lawrence.