…as my 5-year-old son would put it. On the front page of today’s Lancaster New Era is this story, about how farm preservation groups are saying that unless we continue to preserve farms - unless the county continues to borrow money in order to preserve farms - then we face “devastating consequences” in the future.

Nonsense.

The county borrowed $20 million to preserve farms in 2006 and 2007, and preservationists want the county to do the samee thing for 2008 and 2009. Borrowing money to preserve farmland is possibly the worst public policy idea I’ve ever encountered, even if failing to do so means some farmland that could be saved is instead developed.

Indeed, the resolution passed by the Agricultural Preserve Board and Lancaster Farmland Trust notes that farms and the industry they buoy here represents more than 51,000 jobs and contribute more than $4 billion to the local economy annually. If some of that farmland is developed, those figures could indeed drop - but wouldn’t we see a commeasurate rise in the number of jobs in the building industry, and the amount of money it pumps into the local economy?

If Lancaster Countians on the whole want their hard-earned tax dollars to be given to farmers who will then pledge not to take the payday that would come with developing their farms, then good for those taxpayers. But borrowing to do this is the height of fiscal lunacy, especially in a county with as many fiscal issues as this one.

The goal of all this, of course, is to convince commissioner candidates to climb on board and pledge to engage in that fiscal lunacy. To their credit, most commissioner candidates seem to be resisting the urge. Let’s hope they continue to do so.