It is 450 miles long and only 50 miles wide. It produces 250 different crops worth more than $14 billion annually. It is America's most important agricultural resource, and its future is at risk.

California's Great Central Valley stretches from Redding through Sacramento to Bakersfield, and nearly six million people call it home. The Valley has some of the world's most fertile farmland, plus two major rivers and a Mediterranean climate—ideal for agriculture. In addition to unparalleled food production, the Valley has a mix of trade, manufacturing and technological research centers. It's no wonder the region has one of the nation's fastest growing populations.

In just 40 years, the number of people living and working in the Valley will more than double to more than 12 million people. The population boom will not only spark explosive development, it also will threaten to destroy the region's viability. As demographer Hans Johnson from the Public Policy Institute of California explains, "We're in a very phenomenal period now . . . the growth rates that we've experienced and sustained for some time cannot continue ad infinitum into the future. They will, however, continue into the near range future, meaning 40 or 50 years by demographic standards. The question is, when will they slow down, and how will they slow down."

A Call for Strategic Growth

"No growth" is not an option for California's Central Valley. The question facing the region is: how will development keep pace with growth without eating up the region's irreplaceable farmland? The choices are low-density development known as "urban sprawl" or more compact, "sustainable" urban growth.

To begin charting the region's future, people living and working in the Central Valley organized a major conference to discuss local strategies for balancing population growth and economic development with agricultural preservation and environmental protection. The conference, "Our Place in the World: New Thinking for a Big Valley," was co-sponsored by the Joint Center for Sustainable Communities, a collaborative effort of the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the National Association of Counties.

The meeting was held in Sacramento May 27-28, uniting hundreds of business executives, farmers, elected leaders, government officials, educators and others in a discussion about strategic growth for the Valley. Like so many other parts of the country experiencing rapid growth, this region is grappling with diverse issues like traffic congestion, polluted air, inadequate water supplies, uneven job growth, and schools not keeping pace with students' needs for technological skills. Growth is likely to exacerbate these problems while threatening the region's agricultural livelihood.

History Ready to Repeat Itself

Given development trends in California and elsewhere, the potential is very real for overwhelming the Central Valley with low-density urban sprawl and destroying world-class agricultural land. Only 50 years ago, Los Angeles County led the nation in farm income, yet today is a much reduced player in California's agricultural economy. In the same time period, San Jose was transformed from a city of 40,000 people surrounded by productive farmland, to the technological center of Silicon Valley that 2 million people now call home.

Today, the Great Central Valley produces 38 percent of all fruit produced in the United States, 15 percent of all vegetables and 9 percent of America's dairy products. Lettuce, carrots, oranges, lemons, pistachios, walnuts and cotton are just a few of the region's diverse commodities. While the region accounts for only one-half of one percent of U.S. farmland, it produces more than eight percent of the country's total agricultural sales—and nearly 60 percent of California's agricultural income.

"Nowhere else is the scale of change so great or the stakes so high as here in California's heartland," said Modesto Mayor Richard A. Lang.

According to a study by the American Farmland Trust, the low density development that has characterized growth in Los Angeles and San Jose would consume more than one million acres of Central Valley farmland—60 percent of it prime farmland—by the year 2040. By contrast, more compact, efficient urban growth would reduce farmland conversion to 474,000 acres, including 265,000 acres of prime farmland.

Without a regional vision, coordination, leadership and land protection, history may repeat itself in California. The "Our Place in the World" conference was the first step in bringing together the views of the six million people who live in the Valley's 96 cities and 18 counties. While these jurisdictions define the many diverse communities throughout the region, the issues related to growth cross jurisdictional lines and impact the entire region.

Conference Addresses Growth and Related Issues

Workshops during the meeting focused on economic cluster analysis, the health of the water in the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, incentives for landowners to keep land in agricultural production and ways to build livable communities.

A workshop session on education and workforce preparation addressed the need to plan for expanding as well as emerging industries and the importance of creating economic development partnerships that cross city and county borders. As Madera city council and private industry council member Herman Perez noted, "Our lines no longer end at political borders or city borders. The people that we are serving, the people that we are working with, are going beyond those borders; they don't stop at the county line." Speakers described examples of industry partnering with state universities, community colleges and high schools to provide low-cost, accessible, training on high-tech subjects for area residents.

The goal of the conference was to illustrate that building successful communities and a globally competitive economy requires that this large valley consider its own future as a region comprised of separate and distinct communities linked by common resources, a shared heritage and many opportunities. Steve Hughes of the Center for Public Policy Studies in California said that "local officials must solve local problems in their community without damaging the regional planning effort. A solid, sustainable community consists of a balanced collaborative effort between regional planning and local action."