People want our ag lands, the large fields of barley and beets and corn, to stay that way.

People also don’t want to be told what they can and can’t do with their own land.

The proposed Park County Land Use Plan has made a valiant attempt to thread that needle, but at a county commissioner hearing Tuesday afternoon, many locals expressed opposition to a plan that would potentially lead to regulations that would limit how they could use their land, how much they could subdivide and thus how much money they could make off it.

As Heart Mountain farmer and rancher Carrie Peters said, as someone in ag she hates to see farms and ranches broken up, she never intends to break hers up, but she doesn’t feel its her place to tell another farmer that he or she can’t break theirs up.

As Powell resident Dona Becker said, “When we say farmers can’t sell land because we want ag land, we are making them slaves to our desires.”

So, do we just give up on ag lands, content to see the Powell-Cody corridor turned from farms to subdivisions?

Turns out, we may just be able to forestall some of that change by, instead of just regulations — granted, there is always going to be a need for some regulations — but by support and enticement.

A couple of ideas were brought up at the public hearing. The one everybody can do is actually quite simple: Support local ag. There are many farms and ranches that sell meat, produce and other items locally, whether at farmers’ markets or through subscription boxes or simply asking for a delivery of steaks and burgers.

Cutting out the middleman, these ag producers are able to get more for their products and thus have a better chance of keeping their operation more sustainable and even profitable.

Powell beekeeper and farmer Larry French had another idea — build a government program that can pony up the difference on a sale that would allow the farmer selling his land to get the high asking price from a developer, but instead be able to sell it to an aspiring farmer able to offer less, but willing to impose restrictions on himself to not be able to sell the land for more, thus giving it a better chance of staying in ag production.

While I agree with Commissioner Lee Livingston that a land trust may be a better avenue for that than taxpayer funds, the point is clear. There are some regulations that are needed, and infrastructure factors will slow growth in certain areas regardless, but if we want to protect our ag lands, which provide for 1,700 jobs in the county — as per UW research Powell Economic Partnership Executive Director Rebekah Burns shared — the most important thing to do is support our ag producers ourselves.

As Cody developer Harold Musser noted, the market has a way of working things out. So if we can make the market for local ag products more viable, there may be a few less farmers thinking about breaking up and selling their land in the first place.