Farmland Legacy Program fends off residential development threats

Fully Contained Communities (FCCs) may have Skagit County residents on edge, but they are not the most significant threat to local farmland.

The real villain? Low-density residential land use.

According to the American Farmland Trust, 11 million acres of U.S. farmland and ranchland – 2,000 acres a day – were converted to urban and highly developed or low-density residential (LDR) land use between 2001 and 2016.

Seven million of those 11 million acres were turned into 5-, 10- and 20-acre farmettes and other low density, “large-lot” subdivisions.

These scattered developments fragment...