Featured: The Santa Clara Valley Agricultural Plan
Amie acted as the lead consultant in the preparation and adoption of The Santa Clara Valley Agricultural Plan (Valley Ag Plan). This Plan lays out a is a regional land use and economic development strategy that to supports the local food and farming economy and furthers climate change mitigation and resiliency by preventing conversion of farmland to development.
Santa Clara County has a rich agricultural history and was once recognized as the “Valley of Heart’s Delight” famous for its orchards and canneries. In the past 20 years alone, Santa Clara County has lost 45% of its farmland, and much of the 27,000 acres remaining are at continued risk of conversion as a result of intense land development pressure. Despite this, Southern Santa Clara County retains valuable agricultural lands and an important farming industry, with over 1,000 farms and total economic production value of $1.6 billion dollars.
To protect California’s irreplaceable croplands and rangelands, the State of California launched the Sustainable Agricultural Lands Conservation Program (SALCP) in 2015. The Santa Clara Valley AgriculturalAgircultural Plan was is funded in part by SALCP which provides cap and trade funding to protect agricultural lands in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to meet California’s climate change goals.
Read / Download the Plan
Amie MacPhee and Cultivate are helping the Open Space Authoity to translate our vision for preserving the viability of working lands and our region's sense of place into achievable planning and policy solutions. - Andrea Mackenzie, General Manager, Open Space Authority
Map and prioritize agricultural lands for conservation
Identify the regional greenhouse gas reduction potential of agricultural protection
Bring the County, municipalities, and the agricultural sector together to work in concert for agricultural preservation
Blueprint a Regional Agricultural Conservation Easement Program
Revise the County Zoning Ordinance for additional agricultural preservation
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Project Goals
for work and other inquiries, please email us at info@cultivate-ca.com
Cultivate was founded to help change the way people think about improving and managing land. We are a California State Certified Small Business (SB) as well as a Certified Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE).