Stunning Demographic Shift Favors Ag
In a trend that has been unprecedented before in this country land slated for development is being put back into farm ground and I for one couldn’t be happier. I’m Susan Allen stay tuned for Open Range. As I shared before I grew up in the Willamette Valley surrounded by strawberry fields and filbert orchards that today has become a grid of neighborhoods and chain stores. My heart literally breaks every time I visit. Interestingly one of the only bright spots of the housing crisis is that farmland on the outskirts of suburbia once slated for development is being returned to into one of the few economic sectors that is booming, agriculture. According to the Wall Street Journal “the changing dynamics have turned farmers into land speculators and beneficiaries of the housing bust-sometimes buying back the same land they sold earlier." The Journal goes on to report that what is occurring is a major demographic shift. The housing crisis plus high cost of fuel is halting the exodus to the exurbs. Analysts report the era of new home development is simply over. In nearly all of the nation the cost of farm land is rising with the Midwest showing the largest increase up 89.7 percent since 1986. While developers were plowing under farmland between 2000 and 2007 at a rate of two to four million acres a year the conversion has ground to a halt. The era of land speculation, gobbling up large tracks for subdivision be it Phoenix, Portland, Boise will most likely never be experienced again in our lifetime.
