At a weekly meeting of senior staff, I recently found myself having a conversation about Connecticut farms.  As mayor of a city that built over its last farm a century ago, this was not something I would have anticipated as a concern, but the longer I’ve been mayor the more I have come to appreciate how interconnected the very different types of communities are in this state.

Here in the Elm City, we have three farmers’ markets – located in one of our poorest neighborhoods, in one of the wealthier ones, and the third downtown – and they have been greeted with tremendous enthusiasm.  It seems that the full spectrum of New Haven’s economic and racial groups think that locally grown produce adds value to their community.

Among the many components that go into making a successful community, one of the critical pieces that ties everything together is a sense of place.  By that, I mean a reason for people to want to identify with their hometown.  For example, a vibrant and unique town center does that, while a strip development of big-box chain stores that could be anywhere does not.  A weekend farmers’ market in a local park definitely adds to a sense of place.  Part of the success is mixing of neighbors in a pleasant setting, and a larger part seems to be the connection to the farms of our state.

Unfortunately, even as people like those who patronize New Haven’s farmers’ markets are rediscovering the value of local agriculture, we are rapidly losing our farmland.  400,000 acres of farm and forestland has been lost since 1988.  The Courant has reported that 22% of the state’s farmland has been lost in the past two decades.

Current efforts to revitalize the state’s farmland preservation efforts should be applauded, but the associated program to buy the development rights of farmland to keep it undeveloped misses two key components: addressing the reasons farms are being so aggressively developed, and promoting the consumption of locally grown produce.

Since 1970, the population of Connecticut has grown 12%, but the developed land has more than doubled.  That land being consumed was farm and forestland.  If you remember stopping by a farm-stand when growing up outside of Hartford, go back there and see if that farm still exists.  And if you stop and buy a pumpkin by the side of the road, ask yourself whether that pumpkin patch will have a house or a strip-mall in its place in a few years.

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A lot of this development is being fueled by consumer choice – and there’s nothing wrong with that.  Much of it, however, is a result of a state tax structure that incentivizes the consumption of open space, and by planning decisions that are not coordinated across municipal lines or integrated with the economic and housing needs of our state.  Because of our current tax and land use policies, it is often too hard or too expensive to offer housing options in places or designs that will not threaten open space and farmland (for a more detailed explanation, go to: http://www.cga.state.ct.us/pd/FullBlueRibbonCommissionReportFinal.pdf).  This state will not be serious about taking a stand for farms until that reality is changed.

At the same time, we cannot expect that stopping the destruction of farms will be enough to save them.  As aesthetically important as farms are to many of our communities, they have a more tangible and economic value as well, and it would be a shame if we just thought of them as museum pieces to be preserved from our state’s past.  Agriculture is a multi-billion business here in Connecticut – we have some of the best farmland in the world, I am told – but it needs some help getting consumer support.

The state currently does some work to brand and support Connecticut produce, but we need to do more.  At the supermarket, I would certainly pay a couple cents extra to buy apples that were picked ripe and trucked down from a Connecticut farm the night before instead of ones that ripen in a box en route from whatever unknown place they were grown. 

State government has a role to play.  I had that discussion with my senior staff because while the enthusiasm for our local farmers’ markets were there, the coordination to make them a growing success was needed and I wanted to see if City Hall could be helpful.  The same thing, writ-large, is true of the state.

Farms – and fresh produce – are part of what makes Connecticut special, and all of our communities lose something when a farm is lost.  If you have any doubts about that, you should come and ask the eager shoppers at the Wooster Square Farmers’ Market this Saturday.

Mayor John DeStefano, Jr., is Mayor of New Haven and the recent chair of the statewide Blue Ribbon Commission on Property Tax Burdens and Smart Growth Incentives.