By Vanguard Staff
DAVIS, Calif. — The City of Davis announced this week that the California Strategic Growth Council has awarded a $420,000 grant to help the city purchase a 79-acre agricultural conservation easement on farmland northwest of the city limits.
The farmland is located in Yolo County near the intersection of County Roads 31 and 96, along Dry Slough. The property is owned by the Beoshanz family, a longtime Davis farming family who grow tomatoes, corn, wheat, alfalfa, sunflowers and vine seed crops. Dry Slough, a perennial drainage channel bordered by a narrow band of valley foothill riparian vegetation, runs through the property.
The purchase of the conservation easement will cost about $510,000, including closing costs and a monitoring endowment. The City will co-own the easement with the Yolo Land Trust, which will monitor it in perpetuity on behalf of the City. The City and the Yolo Land Trust sought to protect the land because of its proximity to the city limits, its location near other protected farmland, its riparian corridor, and its prime agricultural soils. The remaining $90,000 to purchase and monitor the easement will come from the City’s open space funds.
“This grant reinforces Davis’ long-standing commitment to sustainability and agricultural preservation,” said City Manager Daryel Dunston. “By securing this conservation easement, we’re continuing to protect open space and uphold the spirit of environmental stewardship that defines our community.”
Since 1990, Davis has permanently protected more than 6,000 acres of farmland within the Davis Planning Area — roughly equal to the city’s own footprint. These acres include agricultural lands, riparian corridors, habitat areas, and land threatened by urban conversion. The City co-owns 22 conservation easements with the Yolo Land Trust and three with the Solano Land Trust. Many of these easements are partially funded through the City’s open space parcel tax, Measure O.
The California Strategic Growth Council’s Sustainable Agricultural Lands Conservation (SALC) program is managed by the California Department of Conservation. SALC is part of California Climate Investments, a statewide initiative that directs cap-and-trade funds toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions, strengthening the economy, and improving public health and the environment, particularly in disadvantaged communities.
Follow the Vanguard on Social Media – X, Instagram and Facebook. Subscribe the Vanguard News letters. To make a tax-deductible donation, please visit davisvanguard.org/donate or give directly through ActBlue. Your support will ensure that the vital work of the Vanguard continues.
Sounds like a continuing/future “constraint” in regard to housing. Does HCD and the YIMBYs know about this?
But the map doesn’t even show a fabled greenbelt “moat” surrounding Davis.
How about preserving the Covell Village, Shriner’s and DISC sites, for example? Those are the sites that are under more-imminent threat.
Nothing like a map without a legend :-|
How can we even talk about preserving farmland when we are in the middle of a housing crisis :-|
We need housing, to Hell with farmland and food.