The impact of amenity landownership on agriculture in Talbot County, Maryland

The purpose of this study is to analyze the impact of amenity landownership with its characteristics of high land prices, absentee ownership, and land parcellation on farming and the use of cropland. Talbot County, Maryland, was chosen for study because it is a predominantly rural farm area with a long history of agriculture and popularity as a retreat area.

The results of the study indicate that the purchase of land for amenity uses pushes farmland prices beyond that justified for farm use, leads to increased absentee ownership of farmland, and contributes to the parcellation of cropland.

While a substantial part of the cropland parcelized into properties of less than twenty acres has been lost from production, evidence shows only very small losses on larger sized properties held by amenity owners. In fact, ownership of large acreages by amenity-seeking nonresidents has forestalled parcellation and the loss of cropland. Not only do the amenity owners subsidize farming by keeping high priced land in such a "low-order" use as agriculture, many are active in public planning efforts to preserve and sustain it. They see farming as enhancing the quality of the area and as an essential part of the atmosphere that attracted them to the area. As a consequence, agriculture remains vital and dynamic and the cropland acreage has remained nearly constant for three decades.

Unable to purchase the land they need because of high prices, fanners increasingly become renters of the land they use. High prices and intense competition for land make it difficult for many aspiring and existing farmers to get a self-sustaining acreage. In response, some quit while others turn to part-time farming.

Parcellation, high land prices, absentee ownership and the pressures to till more land have caused territorially fragmented farm operational units to become the dominant type. Although not causal of its existence, amenity ownership of farmland has accentuated the dominance of specialized grain farming in the county.