Journal of Rural Studies, Vol. 6, No. 3, pp. 337-346,1!290 Printed in Great Britain 0743-0167/90 $3.00 + 0.00 Pergamon Press plc The Analytic Farmland Reply to Comment Basis for an Effective Prime Landscape Preservation Scheme in the U.S.A. Arthur C. Nelson Associate Professor of City Planning, Georgia Institute of Technology, U.S.A. zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZ Introduction Thomas L. Daniels (1990) replies to my critique of major prime farmland preservation policies used by individual states in the United States of America (Nelson, 1990). My aim in this rejoinder is twofold. First, to applaud Daniels for important, constructive contributions to the debate, and second to more carefully explain my scheme for an effective prime farmland landscape preservation scheme in the U.S.A. Daniels is already at work implementing the significant features of this scheme. Daniels’ contributions to the debate Daniels embellishes on my central themes and illuminates several additional considerations for which I am grateful. Daniels goes further by suggest- ing a mosaic of individual techniques that, in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, he hopes will preserve the prime farmland base. I believe his scheme will be effective, but only because it includes the techniques that I suggest to be critical in my editorial. Two notable quibbles that Daniels has with my work are its lack of new data and detailed discussion on the role of federal policies in farmland preservation. I can only say in reply that my article was not intended to present new data but rather to syn- thesize existing, voluminous literature into a plat- form on which future discussion may be based. I am not aware of any similar effort. Perhaps that is why this Journal saw fit to publish it. Second, the paper was aimed at only state and local farmland preser- vation policies. Federal policy review would be the topic of an entirely new and different paper of similar length. As it was, my paper consumed a considerable amount of space in this Journal. I agree with Daniels that not enough sound research has been done on farmland preservation policies in the United States of America. Indeed, I recommend a systematic research endeavor. Unfortunately, however, preservation policies are idiosyncratic to individual states, states do not collect suitable or reliable data on policy effects, and national data sources such as the Census of Agriculture cannot be disaggregated below county levels to evaluate policy effects. I join with Daniels in calling for more research. I am perplexed by Daniels’ suggestion that if we were to ignore urban development pressures on prime farmland in regions of the country where he admits there are development pressures, we can actually minimalize the problem of prime farmland conversion. He comes just short of saying that there is no need to preserve prime farmland near urban areas since there is so much of it elsewhere. My preliminary calculations show that the areas Daniels excludes from his analysis actually account for about $25 billion of the United States’ $136 billion agricul- tural output in 1987 (United States Department of Agriculture, 1989). Moreover, my preliminary cal- culations indicate that agricultural production in metropolitan and ‘exurban’ counties approaches half the total national production. Yet, these counties account for only a fifth of the total supply of cultivated prime farmland. I wonder hoti food production and prices would be affected by the removal of such prime farmland from agricultural production. Daniels corrects my overemphasis re- garding the role of farmland preservation policies applied to urban and urbanizing areas, but not without obliquely re-asserting my central concern. Daniels shares my disappointment with the effec- tiveness of many farmland preservation programs. Indeed, much of his own work questions the