Suburban sprawl is putting more farmers on the edge of development, a sometimes perilous state that can hinder their ability to raise their cows and grow their crops. That, in turn, puts more pressure on them to sell their land to developers, contributing to what many experts say is an alarming disappearance of California farmland. The federal government says California has been losing anywhere from 66,000 to 300,000 acres of farmland a year, depending on the study. With the Central Valley's population expected to more than double over the next 40 years, the American Farmland Trust says roughly 15 percent of the Valley's farmland could vanish. By 2040, up to 2.5 million acres of Central Valley farmland, or roughly a third of the Valley, could lie within that zone, the trust predicts.
Farmers say their equipment gets vandalized.
They say their crops get stolen. They say their costs go up. You have people who feel they have the right to jog wherever they choose in spite of people trying to make a living farming. In one celebrated case two years ago, Davis environmentalists picketed a local strawberry grower who was using the same chemicals that plenty of farmers have used for years, Villarejo said. Four years ago the pressures of urbanization prompted Tracy rancher Lynn Bedford to vacate 275 acres of leased land to make way for a subdivision.