Farmers Cultivate Lawmakers - Agricultural Interests Getting A Hearing At General Assembly

By Tom Mitchell
Harrisonburg Daily News Record


To farmers like Mark Deavers, progress doesn't always mean new roads.

"We don't need big superhighways," Deavers said.
Deavers' doubts address a proposed widening of Interstate 81, a project that he thinks will come at a steep price: farmland. If the interstate expands, Deavers says, pasture will provide the extra lanes.

An ongoing tug-of-war between agriculture and government has farmers and others with an interest in private property clamoring to be heard at this year's Virginia General Assembly.
With state legislators dealing with a variety of bills and other measures in Richmond, members of the farming sector are pleading their profession's cause every day. According to the Virginia Farm Bureau Federation, more than 150 of its members met with state representatives on Jan. 24 to discuss issues such as eminent domain reform and farmland preservation.

Keeping The Heat On

Agricultural interests are surfacing from numerous groups, including the Virginia Agribusiness Council and the Virginia Dairymen's Association. This week both alliances kept the heat on legislators.

Katie Frazier, assistant vice president of public affairs for the state agribusiness council, said that eminent domain and other property rights issues, including the estate tax, are dominating talks between agriculturists and politicians.

The state agribusiness council, Frazier said, has made property protection a popular topic, and two versions of a bill to eliminate the estate tax are now being studied in the state House and Senate.

In its present form, the estate tax levies a tariff on farmland when the landowner dies. Such laws, farmers say, leave heirs of farms with unreasonable fiscal burdens, forcing some to sell the farm to pay the tax.

"We came here with four critical issues, but one issue we've been really working on is for the full and permanent repeal of the death tax," said Frazier, a Bridgewater native. "Eminent domain and property rights are getting a great deal of attention. I think that most legislators understand how important agriculture is here in this state."

Frazier added that other issues, including bills to increase the role of small, regional railroads to transport farm products, also are getting attention at the General Assembly.

Legislative Help

Two state representatives who support farmland preservation are Sen. Emmett Hanger, R-Augusta, and Del. Steve Landes, R-Weyers Cave. Hanger is one of two state senators who back an amendment to fund a purchase-of-development-rights program.

Under such a program, a landowner sells his rights to develop a parcel of land to a public agency or a charitable organization charged with preserving the land. The landowner retains all other ownership rights.

Landes told Augusta County farm bureau members last month that "individual property owners have been overlooked."

Dale Gardner, executive secretary of the Virginia State Dairymen's Association, said that members of the state's dairy industry are seeking out not only individuals but also groups in government about ending estate taxes on most farms.
"There seems to be sentiment up in Richmond to do away with the estate tax," Gardner said. "They talked about putting a cap on eliminating the tax at farms worth $10 million."

To Gardner, a $10 million ceiling on estate-tax exemptions may not be as encouraging as it seems "not the way land prices have been going up," Gardner said.

Contact Tom Mitchell at 574-6275 or mitchell@dnronline.com