But now distorted economic forces are threatening the fortunate union of climate, geography, and human ingenuity that has made the Lake Michigan coast one of the best fruit-growing regions in the world. Persistent surpluses, encouraged by state and federal farm policies, keep commodity prices low. Increasing globalization of agricultural trade also exerts downward pressure on prices, said Larry Hamm, chairman of the Department of Agricultural Economics at Michigan State University. The result is that the income farmers receive for fruit, vegetables, grain, milk, and meat are not rising as fast as expenses. Meanwhile, as the region's population grows and its non-farm economy expands, land values are soaring.
Developers love that.
They know if they offer enough money, they own it. The consequences of this trend for northwest Michigan are dramatic. In a 1996 survey conducted by the Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy, Acme Township farmers said just four of the previous ten years had been profitable. And not one farmer interviewed said they would encourage a younger member of their family to take up farming. Earlier this year, on the basis of statistics from a federal land resources inventory database, the American Farmland Trust reported that at least 1,000 acres of crop and orchard land in northwest Michigan have been lost to suburban sprawl since 1992.