Young's Family Farm Pressured by State to Give Up Farm in Favor of Development. Is This Happening in Your State?
by Blue Evening Star
At a time when it is dawning on many that maybe it isn't such a good idea to rely upon food that is grown and transported from hundreds and even thousands of miles away for everyday sustenance, one of the few large producers of fresh produce and poultry in Northern Arizona is threatened with closure.Due to the conditions of rapid runoff of flood waters in Northern Arizona, a pocket of land with good topsoil is as rare as an honest politician, and becoming even rarer as productive farmland disappears—covered by cement and asphalt.
Located on 300 acres in the fertile basin of The Lonesome Valley in Dewey (near Prescott, Arizona) the land at Young's Farm has been a cornucopia of food production since prehistoric times. Farmers from the ancient Hohokam and Sinagua cultures used water from the year-round flowing stream to grow crops in the deep lakebed soil. In 1864 King Woolsey settled in the area and named the Agua Fria River. He used the natural waterfall at the end of the valley to run a waterwheel for grinding the grains he grew. His Agua Fria Ranch has since been known as the Smelter Farm, the Kurtz Farm, and now Young's Farm.
As a consequence of the 1980 Groundwater Act, landowners in the Active Management Areas of Arizona (such as the Prescott area) can pump only the water allocated to them based on “historic use.” Young's Farm, with a history of strong water conservation practices, was allocated one of the lowest “water duties” in the state. This system rewards those land owners most wasteful of our water resources with the highest water duty allocation.
Since 1980 Young's Farm “water duty” has been cut by another 33%. With the creation of the Arizona Department of Water Resources (ADWR) in the 1980s, the state established programs that encourage farmers to extinguish their irrigation water rights in favor of development. By state rule, the value of these rights decreases annually by 4%. This encourages farmers to sell out to developers sooner rather than later.
The ADWR made this rule because homes use less water than farms, and the state has concluded that the Prescott Active Management Area is using groundwater faster than the aquifer can replenish it.
As a result of this ruling, at Thanksgiving 1999 Gary Young of Young's Farm announced that the state's water law was forcing him to sell his farm. Four percent of the value is being stripped away for every year he does not sell to a developer.
In April of 2000, “The Young's Farm Bill” passed the Arizona State legislation. This gave the Prescott Active Management Area farmers a 10-year reprieve from losing the value of their groundwater rights. However, according to this ruling after ten years an accumulated 40% is taken.
Gary Young hoped that a land trust would buy the developmental rights to his family's farm before the 10 years are up, to offset the potential loss of water rights.
The Central Arizona Land Trust (CALT) determined Young's Farm is far more valuable to this state as a working farm than as another housing development. Teaming up with The Trust for Public Land (TPL)—in an effort to preserve family farms and Arizona land for local food production, support educational farm experiences for children, and protect open space and wildlife habitat—these land trusts committed to raising the money or in-kind value to purchase the development rights to Young's Farm.
In spite of a tremendous amount of public support for Young's Farm to be saved, the CALT & TPL regretfully announced recently that in the absence of state funding they will not be able to match the $1.75 million in federal funding that they received within the time frame required by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Because of the ruling by the ADWR, Young's Farm will be stripped of its development water rights, unless it converts its acreage to residential use by midnight December 31, 2009.
In the meantime, the Young's Farm family is continuing to go on faith and planting seeds for the future. They continue to produce fresh barley, onions, corn, pumpkins, turkeys and those wholesome chickens in 2005, and plans are to continue in 2006. The Easter Sunrise Service, Corn Festival, Garlic Festival, October Pumpkin Festival, and Thanksgiving festivities are going on as planned. Thousands of visitors enjoy the Farm Store, The Gift Shop, The Hungry Bear Restaurant, and The Critter Corral.
The situation with Young's Farm is one of many millions of situations around the planet which reveal the ungodly values of our dominant culture. Eventually, with the uplifting perspective of virtuous and spiritized minds in positions of leadership and authority, we human beings will learn to manage and nurture the planet's resources—like water and naturally fertile lands—with the overcontrolling values of godly virtues. In this way we can bring an integrated and holistic intelligence to the many problems facing our beleaguered world.
For information contact Young's Farm at (928) 632-7272 or visit www.youngsfarminc.com.