Utah’s Greenbelt Program Has Caused Unintended Effects on Farmland Protection

Since the 1950s, the amount of farmland in the United States has decreased continually every year. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s 2022 Census of Agriculture, total farm acreage nationwide fell by 74.7 million acres, an area the size of Nevada, between 1997 and 2022. Utah is...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inChoices (Ames, Iowa) Vol. 39; no. 3; pp. 1 - 6
Main Authors Li, Man, Siu, Wai Yan, Capla, Arthur J
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published 01.07.2024
Edition316
Subjects
Farmland protection
Greenbelt
Land Economics/Use
Preferential tax assessment
Utah
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Summary:Since the 1950s, the amount of farmland in the United States has decreased continually every year. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s 2022 Census of Agriculture, total farm acreage nationwide fell by 74.7 million acres, an area the size of Nevada, between 1997 and 2022. Utah is among the states that lost farmland during this period, experiencing a decline of 13%, primarily because of urban expansion (Siu, Li, and Caplan, 2023). This trend raises concerns about the effectiveness of the state’s farmland protection policies.
ISSN:0886-5558
DOI:10.22004/ag.econ.344746