Farmers imperiled
Popular Williamson Act allows agricultural landowners a cut rate on property tax, but that benefit has become a victim of hard times
LAWRENCE K. HO/ LOS ANGELES TIMES Allen Ishida, a citrus grower and member of the Tulare County Board of Supervisors, says he may have to sell some of his farmland because of Williamson Act cuts.
VISALIA - Strolling through emerald groves of orange trees, Tulare County citrus grower Allen Ishida said he reckons he'll have to sell some of his 270 acres to pay higher property taxes should his county pull out of a threatened farmland preservation program.
Thirty miles down California 99, third-generation almond grower Don Davis was making similar calculations.
Davis figures he could rip out rows of almond trees stretching over 480 acres near McFarland in Kern County and sell the land, if necessary. He'd have no choice, Davis said. His property taxes would probably triple from $44,000.
Across the San Joaquin Valley, the richest agricultural region in the U.S., the farmers who produce milk, grow crops and raise beef cattle are nervous about the popular Williamson Act program going belly up.
"We don't want to see it go away because it gives us the ability to just be farmers and to be billed like farmers," Davis said.
Tulare, Kern and other counties are facing tough decisions on how to save the program after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger eliminated $28 million last month for the Williamson Act, widely viewed as the state's most significant land-management tool.
Sonoma County, meanwhile, will lose about $450,000 in state funding following elimination of Williamson Act funding, said Supervisor Paul Kelley. County officials are studying options to maintain a financial incentive that protects agricultural land, and the supervisors are expected to take up the issue this fall, he said.
"We need to keep the property tax incentive even if we're not getting helped by the state," said Kelley, whose district includes a sizable swath of the county's agricultural lands.
By lowering costs for farmers, the property tax break helps keep agricultural businesses viable, as well as protecting open space, Kelley said.
"The Williamson Act provides a way to remain financially viable to stay in agriculture and reduce some of the development pressures," he said. "Some of it is protected already by zoning, by scenic corridors, by greenbelt designations. But agriculture in Sonoma County is a key component of our economy. Agriculture employs a lot of people. It encourages tourism."
Created in 1965, the act allows counties to enter into rolling contracts with farmers and ranchers to keep agricultural land in production for at least 10 years. In return, counties value their lands in ways that reduce property taxes by up to 90 percent. For 38 years, the state has contributed some of the annual property tax revenue that counties lose. Loss of those payments this year is spurring several counties to assess whether they can afford to stay in the program.
At stake are about 16.5 million acres -- more than half of the state's farmland -- protected from development through Williamson Act contracts. Kern County has 1.7 million acres in the program. Fresno County is close behind at 1.5 million acres. Tulare County rounds out the top three with more than 1 million acres, much of it dairy farms that make the county the top milk-producing region in the U.S.
Supervisors in some counties are saying they will wait to see if a lawsuit challenging the governor's actions is successful. Other counties have reluctantly agreed to absorb the funding loss for now.
Tulare, the second-largest farm county in the state, stands out because its leaders are considering canceling its Williamson Act contracts, although supervisors want to find a way to save them.
John Gamper of the California Farm Bureau Federation said loss of these protected lands would be a disaster for the state's agricultural business. If the land valuations rise to market rates, the spike in property taxes would probably cause more farmers to sell their land, he said.
Members of the Tulare County Board of Supervisors say a meager tax base leaves them with little choice but to cancel Williamson Act contracts or find a way to replace the $3.4 million in state money the county will lose this year.
Board members said they don't expect the governor or the Legislature to restore the money soon. But they also said they didn't want to simply let 9,750 contracts expire.
Supervisors decided to weigh another option, forming an assessment district to replace the state payments.
Assessments would be based on a farmer's gross annual income, a formula that would give farmers a break in years when their crops produce less income, Claxton said.
Such a district would produce relatively stable funding and allow the county to continue with its Williamson Act contracts indefinitely, he said.
Ishida, a grower and a member of the Board of Supervisors, can see both sides.
An assessment district, in a sense, "lets the state off the hook," Ishida said. Many farmers, already worried about higher water costs, will object to yet another expense, he said. But growers in the long run will save money if they are able to preserve their Williamson Act protections, he said.
"In the real world, the state is in such a financially tenuous position that I don't think they have a lot of choices," said Ishida, who has taken himself out of the county board's deliberations because his own land is enrolled. "Some of the older farmers will say that's enough and sell off," he said.