Talking with Kings County Warden Fred Whalen the day after he voted for a subdivision in Weston, I could tell he feels as torn as many. A strong advocate of buying local, the warden also saw an economic benefit to the Weston project since he says this county has 5,000 acres of unused agricultural land.

American columnist Anna Quindlen says, “Many have the attitude toward development that we once had toward smoking: sure it's bad, but it won't be a problem for me.” In the eastern Valley these days, people are butting up against a problem with development.

This region, Niagara and the Okanogan boast the three most fertile soils in Canada. Obviously this productive land is a finite and irreplaceable resource. But how do you tell that to farmers who can't make a living raising hogs or chicken?

Approximately half of the two billion acres of land in the United States is working agricultural land, but estimates suggest that every minute of every day they lose two acres of agricultural land to development. Farmland is desirable for building because it tends to be flat, well drained and affordable. Hereabouts, we have a bizarre case of rural beauty drawing city people and retirees to clog the bucolic countryside that attracted them in the first place.

Voluntary Purchase of Development Rights programs have been gaining in interest in the U.S. in recent years. Under the program, landowners voluntarily sell their development rights for the difference between the value of the land if it was sold to a developer and its value as farmland.