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Rappahannock’s farmers need to know they’re appreciated. They need to know that we realize they help maintain this county’s unique character. For this reason, we urge the Rappahannock supervisors to adopt a countywide use value taxation ordinance.
We have rolling Reids of alfalfa and corn instead of subdivision lots because of fanners. We have pastures dotted with black Angus and red Herefords instead of ticky-tacky tract houses because of farmers. We have hillsides of apple blossoms instead of weekend and summer recreation homes because of farmers. Without farmers to keep the land open, Rappahannock would go the way of Prince William County: dairy farms replaced by shopping centers, beef cattle farms by garden apartments, horse farms by small lot developments. With this transformation would come sky high taxes required to meet service demands.
Today, farmers are caught in a pricecost squeeze that has seen little increase in dollars brought in by a bushel of apples, a ton of hay or a market heifer. At the same time, production costs—machinery, labor, fertilizer, pesticides—have doubled, tripled, even quadrupled. Hie farmer’s return on his investment is at its lowest point in almost 50 years, spurring the annual conversion of hundreds of thousands of acres of agricultural land to more intensive uses. We don’t know enough about economics to assess the impact that disappearing farm land will have on this country’s balance of payments, a balance that appears to depend largely on our continaeiA'«[p)Aut&B .<i'| tfw, Muffs. Americamayneuiebreadbasket for the world but it’s easy to see that the breadbasket will turn up empty one of these days if we continue to lose more and more of our farms.
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