Reports on the need for farmlands preservation in the urbanizing Central Valley have become nearly as commonplace as tract homes in Fresno. But when a high-powered group of valley farmers released their own report last month, the reactions indicated that this one might carry more weight than the rest.
The California Building Industry Association, sensing the potential loss of a sometime ally in the valley's land-use wars, condemned the report as "alarmist rhetoric". And the head of a environmenta...