Preserving Farmland, and goat cheese, in Champaign, IL
An open letter for a call to action from Leslie & Wes of Prairie Fruits Farm:
Hello Friends,
We’re Prairie Fruits Farm and Creamery, located two miles north of Urbana and Champaign, IL. In 2005 we were licensed to produce farmstead goat milk cheeses from our own goats’ milk, and since 2008 we have also made sheep milk cheeses from milk we buy an Amish dairy south of us in Arthur. Also starting in 2008 we offer popular all-local dinners on the farm, with products from our farm and from neighboring local farms.
We are concerned about planned construction of a roadway, Olympian Drive, that would pave most of an alfalfa field that we lease adjacent to our property, bisect Centennial farms and a major wildlife corridor, and remove close to 100 acres of prime farmland from production. The stated purpose is to develop this beautiful farmland for light industry that will create “hundreds of jobs”; the likely result is unneeded and uncontrolled sprawl. In addition, the price tag, $27 million for less than four miles of two-lane road, is outrageous, when a freeway exists less than 1 ½ miles south of the proposed road, or two-lane country roads just north of us, can carry plenty of traffic for the foreseeable future.
Most of our neighbors, farmers and residents, are united in protesting this expensive destruction of our landscape and loss of resources, for dubious benefit to the community. We have offered constructive alternatives to state and federal legislators and local government boards, but they claim it has been in plans for decades and is needed as a “connector” (although it is truly part of a ring road system) for industry. Seeing all the unused land in and immediately adjacent to both Urbana and Champaign begs less costly and more environmentally friendly alternatives: keep development compact, infill to preserve farmland and make efficient use of infrastructure that already exists. New construction almost always costs more tax dollars than the community realizes from it for many years. We need to make better use of existing resources.
So if you can, please send a quick email to your state and federal representatives asking them to direct limited resources to more immediate and deserving projects, and make sure these representatives require acceptable and detailed accounting of why this road is needed – in short, ask questions and get specific answers. We think they won’t support this road if they see that citizens are questioning the assumptions of the proponents of the road. Thanks, and let us know if you have any questions – prairiefruits {at} gmail(.)com.
Contact the IL State Legislators: http://www.congress.org/congressorg/dbq/officials/
Contact Federal Legislators: http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml