Release No 0393.00
BY
SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE
DAN GLICKMAN
THE ECOLOGICAL CITIES 2000 CONFERENCE
NOVEMBER 10, 2000 - BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
[As prepared for delivery]
"Good morning, it's a pleasure to be here. I want to thank Max Kennedy, Charlie Lord and everyone associated with the Watershed Institute for organizing this forum and inviting me to join you.
"I'm grateful to be here because the Department of Agriculture's significant role in promoting natural resources stewardship is too often overlooked. We are the largest private lands conservation agency in the world. Fully half of all of the employees in the Department work in forestry and conservation. We are the largest federal player in on-the-ground efforts to establish, improve, and restore open space, green ways, urban gardens and forests in American cities today.
"Under the Clinton-Gore Administration, our cities have experienced something of an economic renaissance -- 4.6 million new jobs, lower unemployment, significant wage growth, record homeownership and more. But even as city dwellers celebrate their economic good fortune, they want to lead lives of quality and not just quantity. And quality of life in cities is about more than economic issues. It's about having safe water to drink and clean air to breathe. It's about being able to drive across town without facing maddening traffic. It's about ensuring that your kids' favorite playground isn't overrun by yet another strip mall and parking lot.
"For the last eight years, we have had leaders in this country who have understood the unbreakable link between prosperity and quality of life. They are among the pioneers of the idea that growth and conservation are not locked in a zero-sum game. You can have both.
"Without sounding too partisan, let me say that no one in public service understands these issues better -- and has been more passionately committed to them -- than Al Gore. Should he be elected our 43rd president, the advocates of ecological cities would have the closest possible friend and ally in the Oval Office.
"But no matter how this bizarre election turns out, I believe that these issues will not disappear from the national agenda. Because when it comes to sustainability and liveability, there is a momentum out there, an unstoppable momentum that's coming from the bottom up. We've seen that at the ballot box, where 300 smart growth measures, investing a combined $9 billion in public money, were passed in 1998 and 1999.
"As I see it, there are three important components to liveability and improving the ecological health of cities.
"The first is the essential work of conservation in urban environments -- clearing vacant lots, improving and protecting community gardens, revegetating open space, creating green ways, urban forests and parks.
"A second element is work done outside the city...but which contributes greatly to city's ecological -- and economic -- vitality. For example, USDA has been actively involved in protecting the New York City watershed, which is hundreds of miles from the city, but critical to every Manhattan resident. In order to enhance urban quality of life, we must protect the open space, forests and farmlands just beyond the city limits. We must understand the vital connection between cities and their surrounding landscapes...the common destiny they share. I'll be coming back to this topic a little later.
"The third element of ecological cities is helping cities recognize what is necessary to improve their ecological health and then working to get it done. I would refer to this as community capacity-building. More and more we see communities taking matters into their own hands and working to protect open space and community gardens. The recent efforts by New Yorkers to stop Mayor Giuliani from destroying community gardens is a prime example.
"The Urban Resources Partnership initiative is one USDA tool that helps urban communities help themselves to protect their green life. Here in Boston, URP has invested $1.8 million over the last five years, reaching over 3,000 people with education and outreach on urban ecosystems. We have worked with citizens to help establish the Chelsea Creek Action Group, which is mobilizing to restore one of the city's most neglected natural resources. We have also helped fund the Historic Roxbury Orchard Project, a comprehensive planting and maintenance effort that will create an historic orchard featuring more than 27 varieties of antique fruit trees.
"URP is helping Boston and 12 other cities realize their dreams for protecting, restoring and creating open space, community gardens, urban wetlands, greenways, and parks. It has been a very successful experiment. But, it has not been without its critics. And, unfortunately, this Congress has elected to place a one-year moratorium on URP funding -- a move that I fear could result in the initiative's demise.
"But URP is just one piece of USDA's urban conservation tool kit. We've done a lot of work to reverse the trend of declining tree cover through our Urban and Community Forestry initiative, which will be funded at $42 million this year, the most ever appropriated for urban forestry efforts.
"Last fall, I also called on the nation's governors to establish new "Millennium Groves" in their capital cities. For each state that answers the call, USDA is donating 100 trees, purchased from the Famous and Historic Trees collection maintained by the group American Forests. So far, 44 states, including Massachusetts, have taken us up on the offer.
"We've been very active in promoting community gardens, which not only beautify neighborhoods and protect urban environments, but can also provide a source of locally-grown food for low-income families in the area. We have a Backyard Conservation Program, which helps private homeowners manage their yards in an environmentally responsible way.
"And we're working with the Department of Housing and Urban Development, providing conservation technical assistance to enhance the green life at public housing developments.
"We've also been leading the battle against the Asian Longhorned Beetle. This pest, which was first detected less than five years ago, has already infested and destroyed more than five thousand hardwood trees in neighborhoods in New York and Chicago. Right now, the only way to destroy the beetle is to chip and burn every part of the tree. We invested $11.6 million last fiscal year on eradication and replanting of over 3,400 trees. We've also worked with China, the beetle's native home, to institute a ban on solid wood packing materials for imports, which is the beetle's means of entry into the United States.
"And yet, for all these efforts, I believe we need an even more vigorous commitment to urban conservation, from USDA and the rest of the federal government. We should consider providing more technical assistance, more cost-share assistance, more support to help cities manage their natural resources...more support to help them with the zoning and planning issues that will make them true ecological cities.
"One simplistic solution to urban environmental problems is to seek out more land, a sort of urban Manifest Destiny. If you've got too much congestion...why not expand and give yourself more space?
"And that's exactly what's happening. As their populations have grown, cities large and small have responded by stretching their perimeters and urbanizing adjacent land. But too often, the amount of land developed has been way out of proportion to population increases. We've seen this in Los Angeles, in Chicago and especially Atlanta, where population has merely doubled over the last 20 years...while urbanized land mass has increased 400-fold.
"This is a disturbing trend. For one thing, it's a direct threat to neighboring farmers and rural areas, which produce the food and fiber that sustain every single one of us.
"You might think that there is great geographical distance between our urban centers and our farm communities. But the reality is that two-thirds of the nation's total agricultural production takes place within 20 miles of urban areas, so farmland is right there for the taking when development plans are drawn up. And often, we're not talking about just any farmland. Dekalb County, Illinois, for example, is home to some of the richest, most fertile agricultural land the nation has to offer. But Dekalb County is also just an hour outside Chicago, making it a prime target for urban sprawl.
"We see the same thing in the Washington, DC area, where the prime farmland of Maryland's Montgomery County has been almost entirely swallowed up, and local farmers have been forced on to less productive land in upper Maryland. What happens when we push farmers off their most arable land? We force them to till marginal lands -- acreage that is highly erodible, for example. We force them to make up for lost production by pushing the earth beyond her limits. And that only creates greater environmental problems, with all American communities eventually paying the price.
"All told, we're losing hundreds of acres of farmland every hour of every day to urbanization. That may not be an immediate threat to the national food supply.
"But as the American Farmland Trust points out, if this trend continues, even with only mild population growth, we could find ourselves as a net food importer by the late 21st century. And I don't think any of us want to be dependent on food imports the way we are on oil imports.
"Even if the food supply is unaffected, consider the other implications of farmland development. Farmers' responsibilities, after all, go beyond just feeding our people. Farmers are the primary stewards of the American landscape. Their commodities include more than wheat, cotton, dairy, livestock and so on. Clean water, purified air, healthy wildlife habitats, rich soil - these too are farm commodities, which are enjoyed by urban and rural citizens alike.
"So USDA has several programs designed to protect agricultural land and help farmers do their work in an environmentally responsible way.
"Our Farmland Protection Program provides funding to state and local governments for the purchase of conservation easements from farmers in order to keep their land in production. Our Conservation Reserve Program makes payments to farmers for idling environmentally sensitive land. We help farmers plant buffers that keep fertilizers and chemicals from running into nearby streams and waterways. Our support for the production of ethanol and other biobased fuels also has an important environmental impact, promoting a renewable energy source and helping control greenhouse gas emissions.
"I also believe USDA has a role in addressing another factor in the urbanization of farmland: the cultural and psychological estrangement between city and country. After all, if you don't understand the inherent value of farms and rural communities then you'll have less hesitation about paving over your farming neighbors. This is kind of ironic, because as I mentioned earlier, there is actually great physical proximity between cities and farms. But that proximity hasn't really created a sense of mutual understanding and cooperation.
"But through our strong support for farmers markets, USDA can help bridge this gap. When farmers bring their fresh commodities to town, it brings them face-to-face with their urban consumers, who gain a better appreciation of the hard work that goes into food production. Farmers markets can become forums for discussion and dialogue. They create a kind of civic space where relationships can be built and common ground can be identified.
"Unfortunately, not enough people are really grasping the universal importance of farmland protection and agricultural conservation. Earlier this year, the President proposed a budget that would have dramatically increased investments in farmland protection, wetlands, wildlife habitat restoration and more. The President also set aside $600 million for a brand-new program that would have provided direct payments to farmers who adopt comprehensive conservation plans.
"But the Administration's budget proposal was essentially dead on arrival at Capitol Hill, and Congress ended up completely short-shrifting farm conservation. Farmland protection took a major hit, with a paltry $10 million funding level.
"This, in my opinion, is just bad public policy. In the coming years, all of us have to galvanize and mobilize in support of an unshakeable public commitment to farmland protection and agricultural conservation. It has to be a major investment, numbering in the hundreds of millions. To those who think that's too much, I say you can't put a price on a healthy landscape, fresh air and safe drinking water.
"You see, this isn't just a regional concern, and this isn't special interest politics. Every single American has an interest in environmentally responsible agriculture. Because what farmers do upstream has an impact on cities downstream, and vice versa.
"You can't separate our natural resources, calling some "urban" and others "rural." From the mountain headwaters to the ports and city waterfronts below, it's all one and the same. Air pollution doesn't respect zoning boundaries. Contaminated water doesn't stop flowing when it reaches the county line. As John Muir, the founder of the Sierra Club, put it: "When we try to pick anything out by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe."
"So we're in this together -- urban and rural. Cities are, of course, the birthplace of civilization. They are our financial capitals, our educational hubs, our centers of art and culture. We must do possible ensure that they are liveable and sustainable communities. But we can't do that without also protecting our rural land base, without promoting and encouraging the very best environmental practices on the farm.
"We cannot create ecological cities in a vacuum. The ecological cities of the 21st century will be ones that address their internal environmental issues...but also respect the American agrarian tradition and find a harmonious coexistence with the rural communities next door. Thank you very much."
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