Itâs strange to hear people state that Marinâs ranches should receive public funding because they are sustainable businesses worthy of saving. This always struck me as an oxymoron. Sustainable businesses shouldnât rely on outside funding.
In contrast to being self-sufficient, these ranches receive federal subsidies, state grants, state and federal bailouts, the use of incredible amounts of land, and grandfathered water rights for the land (which essentially means they get to use copious amounts of water for their businesses without paying for it while operating in a drought state). As if all that wasnât enough, these ranches also apparently need multi-million dollar conservation easements to help them keep operating (enter MALT and Measure A). At what point do you finally realize you are using the definition of UNSUSTAINABLE to describe sustainable businesses? If in fact these businesses are struggling I gotta ask, how many generations are required for these people to finally figure out a good business model? Why is it our responsibility to bail them out? What other businesses do you know like that? The reality is that these businesses were never sustainable, but they had access to plentiful resources thus they could operate in an unsustainable manner and still be profitable. Mother earth has finally reached the point of not being able to handle the constant abuse and therefore these businesses need even more financial help (trucking in water, drought disaster relief, etc.). Maybe instead of continuing to spend tax dollars keeping businesses that hurt the planet going it's finally time to look at what should replace those ranches. #sustainable #ranches #unsustainable #economicdrain #ranching #landabuse #cattle #animalagriculture #MALT #MeasureA #conservation #conservationeasement #ranching #marincounty #cattle #livestock â
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Many people believe a consequence of not funding private ranches with millions of public and private dollars will be for that ranch land to be turned over to urban developers.
First, this is not a real threat. Zoning laws prevent such development from taking place. However, thatâs not the topic of focus for this post. Iâm curious why we must live under the cloud of threat that these so-called âstewards of the landâ would choose to doom the land to such development? The people who love the land and have a connection with the land are willing to doom it for a payout? Hmmmm. Next, why do we think the fate of land must exist on only these two extremes? Why do we perceive no other options? The argument is always proposed as âItâs either ranching or skyscrapers, wouldnât you rather have the open space of ranching?â Make no mistake, this land is highly desirable and many would-be buyers are interested in doing good things with the land, such as natural restoration. I happen to be familiar with a recent purchase of ranch land in Marin that fits the scenario I just described. The buyer was required, as part of the zoning law, to continue with agriculture of some form on the land while also being prohibited from subdividing it into multiple housing developments. So we can put this myth of development to rest. Making the scenario above even more interesting is the fact that the ranch had already received a multimillion dollar MALT easement. Remind me again what the importance of those easements wasâ¦wasnât it to encourage the ranchers not to sell? With this one example we already see evidence that( A.) The land is already protected from urban development and (B.) these easements donât prevent the ranches from selling anyway. Letâs go back to pretending that the myth of urban threat is real. These are all heralded as multi-generational family ranches so Iâve got to ask, how many generations are required to get your business to be self-sustaining? And after decades of using up the land and water to yield private income the final act is to sell the land off to developers? Thatâs pretty messed up. Anyone with an ounce of ecological sensibility can see that this land is abused and degraded. They used it for all it could give and now that earth is finally throwing in the towel the ranch owners final act is to finish the land off? Iâve been examining urban sprawl in California for the last few years and this is absolutely a massive environmental threat so Iâm thankful for conservation efforts that protected places like Marin from suffering the same fate. But the existence of the ranches is not the savior. After all, it is the ranch and farm owners who are selling to these urban sprawl developers. The practice of ranching simply prepared the land for development by killing off nature ahead of time. Ranching is the disease that cripples the land. Urban development is the death blow that follows. #MALT #MeasureA #conservation #conservationeasement #ranching #marincounty #cattle #livestock #urbansprawl â If you support Measure A it is likely because you support parks. It's also likely that you saw part of MALT's misleading $300,000 advertising campaign, after all, MALT will be thing winners if this passes. What you likely don't realize is that Measure A will allocate 20 percent of public funds—some $30 million—to Marin’s largest landowners.. Private, wealthy land owners get 20% of your tax dollars that you thought were going toward parks and restoration. The financial aspect of this sneaky allocation of tax dollars is bad enough, but from an ecological aspect I can say that supporting ranching is the same as hurting nature. Go to the page to learn more. #MALT #Marinagriculturallandtrust #measureA #ranching #marincounty #pointreyes #cattle #nature #parks #openspace #shameofpointreyes
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