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After winning a state grant, San Benito County officials began the process of creating the Agricultural Element to include in the 2035 General Plan—the document that by law guides all county land use decisions.
On Nov. 14, county planners and agriculture and conservation organizations held a meeting to discuss the purpose of the agricultural element, its timeline, and how the community can get involved.
“This effort to prepare an agricultural element is intended to strengthen the county’s support for agriculture and the long-term viability of the agricultural economy,” said county Director of Planning and Building Abraham Prado.
Although the General Plan has a land use element, it doesn’t have a specific one focused on agriculture. The Ag Element aims to fill that gap by establishing policies to support and protect agriculture.
The specific goals are to identify agricultural lands for conservation, farmland at risk of conversion or loss, and to state the intrinsic benefits of farmland besides food production—such as job creation, carbon sequestration and air quality. Other goals discussed at the meeting are the development of conservation strategies and agricultural policies.
The project to create an Ag Element began in January 2023. After learning about a grant that could help develop a long-term agricultural policy, Lynn Overtree, executive director of San Benito Agricultural Land Trust, and Karminder Brown, executive director of San Benito Resource Conservation District, reached out to the San Benito County Farm Bureau. The grant was made available by the California Department of Conservation’s Sustainable Agricultural Lands Conservation Program, which supports land-use planning and agricultural conservation initiatives.
Both Farm Bureau and county staff agreed that San Benito County should look into the grant, and brought the two local ag conservation organizations together to work on an application. The San Benito County Board of Supervisors approved the grant application and the county formally applied for the grant in September 2023.
The $500,000 grant, to which the county will add $50,000 from its own budget, has allowed the county to hire the consulting company ICF, which has been working on the project since May, to help with research and drafting reports.
The agricultural community is helping draft the Ag Element through a “stakeholder planning group.” The county is seeking additional local input via an Ag Element Stakeholder Planning Group Questionnaire which is open for submissions until Nov. 29.
At the Nov. 14 meeting, Arielle Goodspeed, the county’s principal planner, said they were still looking for people to join the Stakeholder Planning Group and become the county’s “partner” in this process.
The county plans to have a full draft for public review by spring 2025 and to have the Ag Element final draft in the fall. It will then be submitted for approval by the San Benito County Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors.
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