71st SWCS International Annual Conference July 24-27, 2016 Louisville, KY

1. State of America’s Farmland
Analyzing Future Threats to Farm and
Ranchland at the National Level
Ann Sorensen, John Larson and Dave Theobald

2. 2002 Farming on the Edge Map:
Every State Lost Valuable Farmland

3. FOE on Steroids
 Conversion and loss of ag land over time
 Identify and zero in on what happens to our
highest value farm and ranchland
 Look at values and at vulnerabilities
 Use new data to project loss from development
to 2040 and factor in a changing climate
 Link to policies

4. 75%
67%
70%
70%
68%
70%
65%
Projected build‐out map to 2040
Projected impacts of water
availability
Projected locations where
agriculture is most likely to be…
Relationship between threats
and farmland protection policies
Relationship between threats
and most productive land
Relative threat of urban
development
Vulnerability index that
combines multiple future threats
Stakeholders want Projections

5. Conservation Science Partners
Bridge conservation biology and landscape
ecology
• Advanced geospatial and remote sensing
analysis
• Technical capacity of statistical modeling with
very large datasets, machine learning algorithms
• Capitalize on recent computational platform
breakthroughs (GEE)

6. Partnered with USDA NRCS
 Important soils databases
 Valuable ag land designations
 Information from the ~880,000 NRI dataset
 Impacts of farm and ranchland losses
 Policies and programs to address it

7. Challenges of National Mapping
 Data differs in coverage, quality, resolution,
compatibility, confidentiality and update frequency
 Scope, scale and definitions vary widely
 CSP will use detailed land use data points to
validate the modeled results and estimate
uncertainty

8. Importance of National
Resources Inventory
 Gold standard for national information on natural
resource and environmental conditions
 Scientifically valid, comprehensive dataset
compiled by USDA NRCS since 1982
 When integrated with spatial data, resulting maps
will be consistent with NRI trends and patterns at
sub-county scale (~ 2.5 - 10 acre resolution)

9. Getting the Definitions Right
How should we define Ag Lands?
• What constitutes Ag land varies among our
federal agencies – and internationally!
• AFT staff has initially defined Ag land based on
its cover/use -- cropland, rangeland,
pastureland, some woodlands (owned by farms
but hard to identify spatially)

10. Ag Land types

11. Ag Broad Land Cover/Use Types: Harmonized
with county-level NRI estimates
Land cover
(NLCD, CDL)
Decision rules
1. Cropland
2. Pastureland
3. Rangeland
4. Woodland
5. Others
Non-federal
lands
NRI
county-level
estimates

12. Defining Valuable/Strategic Ag Land
• Include prime, statewide important and unique
soils, limited to land currently in Ag use,
OR
• Include all land areas with prime, statewide
important and unique soils.
 Separate out soils that have limitations, e.g. prime if
irrigated, prime if drained or not flooded to identify the
most resilient lands

13. Valuable ag lands farmed

14. Defining Valuable/Strategic Ag Land
 In previous work, AFT prioritized unique farmland
that supports specialty crop production
 Some specialty crop production is dependent on
soils, some more dependent on microclimates
 States with unique soils tend to identify and map
them but this may not pick up all areas of specialty
crop production

15. Factors/Attributes
Values (+)
• Soil quality
 Soil productivity (e.g., prime)
 Soil capability
• Food production
 Biomass produced
 Value of crops produced
 Specialty crops (micro-climate)
• Wildlife habitat
 Working lands habitat
 Hunting, recreation
• Local food and farmers
 Food sheds
• Scenic beauty/rural heritage/open
space
• Cultural/historic
• Adjacent to protected land
Vulnerabilities (-)
• Development pressure
 Urbanization
 Rural Industrial, commercial,
transportation energy
• Environmental sensitivity
 T&E species habitat
• Water quality
 Pesticide/herbicide use
 erosion
• Water quantity
 Inadequate water supply
Parsimony!

16. Projected Timeline: 2016
Fall/Winter
 Spatial datasets of past and current extent
and distribution of ag land
 Prototype map of ag land types (county
level NRI data, harmonizing land cover,
census and NRI data)
 Maps of past loss to urbanization

17. Projected Timeline: 2017
Spring:
 Enhanced maps using NRI point data
Summer:
 Enhanced maps for 2012 to 2040 using
spatially-explicit, statistical model (housing
density and the changing climate)

18. Saving the Land that Sustains UsSaving the Land that Sustains Us