Farming
Despite its agricultural heritage in the Natomas Basin, large-scale farming has become increasingly difficult and unprofitable for a variety of reasons.
According to written comments and testimony before the Natomas Community Advisory Council, the Sacramento County Planning Commission, and the County Board of Supervisors, large-scale farming in the Upper Westside Plan Area is no longer sustainable. These are the existing, on-the-ground conditions in this part of the Natomas Basin:
small parcel sizes and ownership patterns that don’t allow an economy of scale
restricted farming practices due to surrounding urbanization (e.g., no pesticide spraying near schools, homes, and businesses)
theft and vandalism of farming equipment
high labor, equipment and material costs
the investment no longer makes sense
Many of the farmers within the Upper Westside’s plan area have stopped farming, want to retire, or assert it is no longer profitable to lease out their plots of land to others for farming.
Based on farmland mapping available from the California Department of Conservation, during the past 25 years the amount of “prime farmland” within the Upper Westside plan area has declined by 39% (from approximately 1,950 acres to 1,197 acres). This fact is consistent with written comments and testimony of the farmers located in this area of the Natomas Basin. Of the remaining 1,197 acres of mapped prime farmland, approximately 250 acres are located within the proposed 542-acre Ag Buffer. The ag buffer, which provides an open space for continued farming and habitat mitigation between the 1,524-acre Development Area and Garden Highway.
The project applicant and/or future developers will be required to mitigate the loss of farmland within this plan area at a 1:1 ratio (i.e., for every acre of farmland converted, an equivalent acre of farmland will be permanently preserved in off-site areas where farming remains more economically and practically sustainable).