While driving through Kansas on Highway 54 and looking at the beautifully green farmland rolling along for miles, it is hard to believe that in many places it is being destroyed by urban sprawl, until you get within 15 miles of Witchita and see where it has happened. Since the early 1980’s, over 4 million acres of farmland have been consumed by urban sprawl (“Farming”1). Despite the fact that such a large amount of farmland has been lost, Edward L. Hudgins, Editor of Regulation magazine and Director of Regulatory Studies at the CATO Institute, believes:Whatever your preference, it should be none of the government’s business nor the business of your fellow citizens. Ideally you should live where and as you wish, and leave others to do the same. (Cooper 881b) Apparently, Mr. Hudgins has not yet been informed that this is not an ideal world; this is a world where greedy, irresponsible land developers build subdivisions and never once think or care about how it affects the land. This disrespect for the land is what has forced the government and “fellow citizens”, in the form of preservation organizations, to use tools such as land trusts, protective zoning and tax breaks to protect greatly needed farmland; because without their help, it would become extinct.Many people have reacted to the ever-growing threat of urban sprawl by joining together and forming farmland trusts (organizations that work to protect farmlands through conservation easements, education and assisting government in creating public policies). Conservation easements give the farmer monetary compensation in exchange for restricting future land development of his property; this program is based on the idea that a land owner has a number of rights to that land, one of them being the choice of how to use that land. Once a land trust organization purchases the agricultural conservation easement of a piece of property, that organizat...
