Accounting for Lost Acreage.

Privately owned forests, wetlands, and croplands in the United States are disappearing at alarming rates due to development and erosion, according to a report released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) on 7 December 1999. The report, which summarizes the USDA's 1997 National Resources Inventory (NRI), reveals that development has doubled during the last decade to more than three million acres a year. In announcing the report in an address to the USDA's National Conservation Summit at Iowa State University, agricultural secretary Dan Glickman said, "Conservation challenges are mounting and intensifying more quickly than we are solving them." Glickman urged Americans to join in a collaborative effort to improve the declining health of America's private land, which accounts for about 75% of total land cover.

The NRI, which is conducted every five years (1997 is the latest), is a statistical analysis-based survey of nonfederal land. It comprises data on land use, soil erosion, farmland and wetland loss, and other natural resource information from 800,000 selected locations in the United States.

Conversion of agricultural land to other purposes such as subdivisions and industrial areas is traditionally thought of as happening only around major metropolitan areas. The NRI report shows that growing numbers of small and mid-sized cities are also contributing to land loss. According to the NRI, states with the highest acreage conversion rates include California, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas. In a 6 December 1999 statement, Vice President Al Gore said that the high agricultural conversion rates do not threaten American's food supply but do result in land fragmentation and loss of family farms that raise produce for urban markets, as well as elimination of open spaces.

"It's shocking to see to what extent states have experienced rapid conversion from farmland," says Don Buckloh, a farmland information specialist with the American Farmland Trust (AFT), a nonprofit organization that works to prevent productive farmland loss and aims to keep private land in private hands. The AFT uses the NRI to closely analyze agricultural conversion in each state and to develop conclusions about the most threatened farmland areas. In past years, the AFT published its analysis of the NRI in a report called Farming on the Edge. Currently, the AFT is updating its publication with the new information released in the 1997 NRI report. Buckloh says that the Farming on the Edge reports take the resource information further than the NRI reports since they focus on the most productive farmland and conversion in areas experiencing the most threat.

In response to the problems of land natural resource loss, President Bill Clinton's Fiscal Year 2001 proposed budget includes a significant increase in funds for a Farm Conservation Programs Initiative, which would provide resources to state and local governments to enter into agreements with farmers to preserve farmland and encourage environmentally sound land management. This program, combined with various legislative proposals and other ongoing programs, would provide more than $11 billion for additional assistance to the rural economy during 2000-2002. Increases are also proposed for five ongoing conservation programs, the Wetland Reserve Program, the Conservation Reserve Program, the Farmland Protection Program, the Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program, and the Environmental Quality Incentives Program. In a 7 February 2000 statement outlining the Fiscal Year 2001 proposed budget, Glickman said that "the president's budget is fiscally sound, while making key strategic investments in the farm safety net, protection of our natural resources, anti-hunger efforts, and further economic development of rural America."

According to Gore, the Clinton administration will also continue to help communities address urban sprawl through the Livable Communities Initiative, an array of programs that provide tools and resources to protect open spaces, strengthen local communities, and help ease traffic congestion.

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