As a business owner and farmer in Pierce County, I truly appreciate how much work the Alderton-McMillin Community Planning Board put into its draft plan for the area between Sumner and Orting, home to some of the county’s richest soils.

Now I hope the Planning Commission and County Council will add to it so that it’s even better. The draft plan just doesn’t do enough to protect the working farms in the Puyallup Valley.

As part of a community that appreciates locally grown food, and knowing the farmers who grow it, we must tell Pierce County to do more to protect the remaining prime agricultural soils in the county.

In order to do just that, the plan should not allow for rural clustering, increased sprawl or transfer of development rights receiving areas near agricultural lands and within the plan area.

Instead, Pierce County needs to focus on designating more land as agricultural, implementing proposals that will support locally marketed agricultural goods as an economically viable industry, and keeping development away from rural areas and prime agricultural soil.

The Pierce County Planning Commission should improve the Alderton-McMillin Community Plan so that farming remains a healthy and viable reality in Pierce County, not just a memory.