Oct. 18 — Farms add to our quality of life

For three weeks, this newspaper has been chronicling the travails of farming in East Pierce County. We’ve examined our farming history, the challenges facing farmers and, in the last of the series today, what some innovative farmers are doing to survive.

The fact is, the Puyallup valley is being “transformed from an agricultural center to a highly urbanized population center,” as the 2006 Pierce County Agriculture Strategic Plan states. If the residential and commercial growth rates continue at their current pace, about 60,000 new residents will move into this region by 2011.

Each new home requires more roads and more services, and they collectively displace about 900 acres of farmland per year. If politicians continue to allow developers to chip away at our rich soil, farms will eventually disappear completely. That won’t happen for lack of effort by the Pierce County Council. The Farming Assistance, Revitalization and Marketing (FARM) program adopted by the county last year is attempting to promote the long-term viability of farming. That’s no small undertaking when land values are reaching $1 million or more per acre for high-density urban areas.

As our stories have illustrated, the temptation to cash out presents only one of the formidable obstacles to the future of East Pierce farms. New immigration pressures and the difficulty of finding skilled farm laborers present other challenges, as do local regulations, tax laws and the diminishing number of profitable markets.

But farmers are a hardy and resilient bunch. With citizen support of farm-friendly initiatives and political candidates at the county and municipal level, our farming heritage has a chance. The existence of farms form part of the charm of the East Pierce lifestyle. It’s in all of our best interests to preserve them.