Today’s Grand Rapids Press features an article that celebrates the use of taxpayer dollars to pay farmers for their land. You’re probably thinking “what does the state do with the land they purchase from the farmer?” Well, that’s the rub… They don’t use your tax dollars to buy the land from the farmer to turn it into a park or a community center. They pay the farmer only for a pledge that he won’t sell his land to developers, who would probably do something horrible with it, like build houses or businesses. The farmer gets to keep his land and farm it as he always did, it’s just that he gets largesse from the great wealth extraction and redistribution device we call government, all in the name of “saving the farmland.”

The article states that of Michigan’s estimated ten million acres of farmland, 300,000 were “lost” between 1997 and 2002 (wow! At that rate, we won’t have any farmland left in 150 years. Then what will we eat? ) and cheers the socialist planners for putting a roadblock in the way of people and their locust-like race to blight the earth with homes, hailing one such expenditure for “the promise it [the farmland] will never become a neighborhood of ranch homes and bi-levels with 2 1/2-stall garages.” After all, there’s nothing worse than a bunch of middle-class people living in houses, is there?

But what about the city-dwellers? Don’t they “deserve” to have beautiful farmland minutes from their downtown existence? And what about the residents of the outskirts, who have lived in open space with the farm land for so long? Don’t they “deserve” to keep their solitude and keep the city from growing around them? The answer, of course, is no. They have the right to determine what will be done with their property, and their property only. The farmers have the absolute right to do what they see fit with their property, including selling it to a developer. The developer, with ownership of the property, has the right to build a neighborhood. Home buyers, if they are attracted to the area, have a right to buy and hold houses on what used to be farm land. If other people don’t like it, they have a choice: Sell their own property and move farther away from the city. They do not own the property of others, so they do not have a right to tell others what to do with their property. Those who buy property outside a city know that there is the possibility of the city growing toward them – in fact, it is a part of the decision making process, determining how far out to be while enjoying the benefits of the city center nearby, measured against the forecast timeline for when the city will grow nearer.

The planners have their own motivation for interfering. They don’t like this concept of self organization, people living where they choose. They argue that we should force people to live in the city, in their planned developments. Suburban “sprawl” offends them because it represents wealth and free choice. They plot schemes designed to make people feel guilty for their selfish desires to live outside the city. They promote fear, preying on economic ignorance to scare people into thinking that one day, farm land will all be developed and we will have no food. This is absolute bunk.

The value of farmland is a function of the free market and self-organization. Farmers with land just outside of urban centers stand to benefit at some point in the future. A 79 year old farmer in the article sold 111 acres of his land to a developer for $900,000 – that’s $8,100 an acre. The man was able to farm and make a living his whole life, then enjoy a nice retirement bonus and perhaps an inheritance for his children. Indeed, a wise farmer may locate closer to a population center precisely for this reason – knowing that he may profit from cultivating the land for years, all the while holding an asset that will appreciate greatly as the city attracts more people. Of course, the article portrays the aforementioned farmer as a man desperate to save the farm, but ultimately swallowed up by the temptation of the evil capitalists with their offers to buy his land. On the other hand, the land of farmers far away from cities holds its value as farm land, but will not be sought after for development. This is, of course, because building a subdivision in the middle of nowhere probably isn’t a good idea.

Another farm owner in the article chose instead to cash in on the government welfare program, happily accepting your tax dollars as payola. “It’s like we sold it, but it’s still ours,” she said. “Why sell it and have somebody in your backyard?” Why, indeed, when the government will give you money for nothing?

This idea that government thieves are taking money from the masses and giving it to someone else just so they’ll do what the government wants them to do with their property is appalling. The cost of this government intervention goes beyond the redistribution of money – by taking land off the market, the program creates scarcity and forces land prices to be higher in the area, driving up the cost of home ownership. As usual, government control and intervention in the market only makes matters worse.