By
Christine Morris
Assistant Editor
Living in a rural
community is the simple life. It means breathing fresh air, being
surrounded by acres of beautiful woodland or prairies, roaming wildlife
that eat right from your hand and silence only broken by the occasional
pick-up truck that drives by - the driver waving of course.
At least that’s what city folk think when they decide to leave
the busy, noisy community they live in to move to the country. It’s
a growing trend that is costly to the rural environment and those
who farm it, said Patty Cantrell of the Michigan Land Institute.
“The way we grow is sprawling and we don’t use our land
efficiently,” she said. “Our population is not growing
so much but we are sprawling.”
For example, Grand Rapids, Mich. grew by 4.3 percent last year but
the surrounding area grew by 16.1 percent.
Recent data shows that Michigan has lost 360,929 acres of farmland
to development, Cantrell said. It could be a mall, but a lot is residential
development.
“The sprawl is draining cities of economic wealth and creates
new costs for the countryside,” she said. “We’re
making that easy to do because we make highways and open up land.
We aren’t enforcing our environmental lands and we have not
invested in our cities well enough to keep them safe and attractive
for people.”
Naomi VandenBosch, whose family moved from the city to the country
said another reason more people are moving in the rural area is because
farmers prefer to sell to people like her.
“When farmers need to unload or sell or retire and there’s
not a younger generation to step in, they are selling it to where
they can get the most money and that from people like us who aren’t
farmers,” she said.
No matter what reason sprawl is happening, Cantrell said we need to
invest in cities and protect farmland.
However, one law that exists to protect farmland could be causing
more harm than good in Michigan.
An Act was created in 1945 to protect growers from pests and plant
diseases that result from neighboring abandoned orchards. The Michigan
Department of Agriculture (MDA) was given the responsibility to investigate
each case in the state and determine what steps need to be taken to
render a solution.
In May of 2002, a grower who owns a commercial orchard in the “Ridge”
apple growing region near Sparta, contacted the MDA because he believed
his neighbor’s abandoned apple orchard harbored apple maggots
and codling moths, causing damage to his own orchard.
An employee of MDA inspected the abandoned orchard, owned by VandenBosch,
in both August and September. After the second inspection, apple maggots
and codling moths were found and a letter was sent to VandenBosch,
stating the options she had to remedy the “nuisance.”
This letter caught VandenBosch by surprise because she didn’t
realize such a law existed when she and her family moved from Dallas
in 1993.
“We bought our property about 10 years ago, and the realtor,
appraiser and seller didn’t tell us about it,” she said.
“We had no inkling there was anybody who cared about the state
of anything on our property until we got the letter in the mail.”
VandenBosch said she wished the farmer approached her first instead
of going to the MDA.
“Why wouldn’t a farmer come in, knock on our door and
say ‘I’m concerned?’” she said. “Why
did he call out the big boys to come over and beat us up?”
Amy Irish-Brown, an Extension agent for MSU, said one reason he may
not have contacted VandenBosch first is because many growers are hesitant
to complain about neighboring nuisance orchards because they are afraid
of the backlash they might get for their day-to-day operation.
“They don’t want to open a can of worms with a neighbor
that may lead to other complaints against them – whether true
or not true – they just don’t want to start down that
road,” she said.
VandenBosch said the case turned ugly because the MDA violated rules
in the investigation, which could have cost her up to $150,000 if
she was ordered to remove the 15 acres of abandoned orchard.
“I had no other choice but to take them to court,” VandenBosch
said, and she won.
The chief judge of Kent County Circuit Court ruled that the MDA needs
to put some better procedures in place to protect people’s due
process rights, said Chris Bzdok, VandenBosch’s lawyer.
“It (the ruling) says that before the MDA declares their property
a nuisance, they have to give them all the due process rights, which
includes an appeal, a hearing, an administration judge, evidence and
witnesses.”
All of which were excluded, he said.
“I think it really boils down to a lack of training on this
issue,” VandenBosch said.
But Jeff Zimmer, a regional supervisor at the MDA, said he disagrees.
“It’s a matter of going out to the orchard and determining
what pests are present and that’s what my staff is qualified
to do,” he said. “We’re still evaluating our procedure
and providing a better opportunity of a hearing under the offices
of administration hearing act.”
Zimmer did ensure that the MDA will continue to do its job.
“We’ll continue to evaluate nuisance orchard and vineyard
complaints on a case by case basis and determine the best route of
resolution,” he said.
However, the 15 acres of “abandoned orchard” on VandenBosch’s
property still remains.
Even though VandenBosch said she doesn’t hold high opinions
of the MDA, she wants to make it clear that she is not out to hurt
the grower.
“There needs to be something in place to protect farmers,”
she said. “But landowners like us also need to be protected.
We have rights too.”
VandenBosch said the rural community is bound to gain more city folk
like her so an alliance should be formed between everyone.
“As the law is being applied today, it pits non-farmers against
farmers,” she said. There needs to be an alliance between everyone,
including the MDA.
Even though VandenBosch will now get due process, the issue of her
abandoned orchard still remains. She hired a wildlife biologist from
Amazon Natural Resources who classified the property in question as
a secondary succession eastern deciduous woodland.
“It’s dense with a huge variety of plants, and yes there
are apple trees, but we also have a thorough wildlife,” VandenBosch
said. “The other thing I was told by tree fruit experts is that
I do not have optimum conditions for any of these insects that could
possibly be a threat to commercial growers.”
So if MDA goes through the process, she still contends she does not
have an abandoned orchard on her property.
