Preventing the Extinction of Small Farms
Zoning Practice — December 2024
By Sabrina Torres
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Small farms are essential for environmental sustainability, economic vitality, and social cohesion. They use agricultural practices that promote healthy soils and biodiversity, create and support ancillary local businesses, and strengthen community connections to food. However, small farms face significant challenges that threaten their survival.
The rising cost of land, climate change impacts, and development on and around prime farmland represent just a few of the many challenges farmers face. While there are opportunities to counteract the loss of farms and agricultural infrastructure through zoning and other local policy initiatives, these tools can also restrict farmers' ability to diversify traditional farming operations and benefit from economic opportunities in local markets.
This issue of Zoning Practice explores zoning techniques that can help prevent the extinction of small farms. By examining successful case studies and innovative policies, it highlights how strategic zoning can foster communities where small farms in rural and peri-urban contexts thrive and contribute to local food security and agricultural heritage.
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About the Author
Sabrina Torres
Sabrina is the Sustainable Agriculture Planner for Boulder County, a liaison position between the Land Use Department and Office of Sustainability, Climate Action, and Resilience. Sabrina helps identify gaps and explore solutions aimed to improve sustainable agriculture initiatives and the viability of local farmers and ranchers through a planning lens.
Before working in government, Sabrina spent previous years as a sustainability consultant tackling international environmental advocacy initatives and obtained her Master's Degree from Columbia University.