A few years ago, Owyhee County leaders noticed a sort of loophole in their comprehensive plan. Under the plan, it was perfectly above board for someone to buy a parcel of agricultural land, then undergo a rezoning or conditional use permitting process to allow one or more houses to be built. To assess the scope of the issue, county leaders made a map of the conditional use permits approved in the past 20 years, recalled Mary Huff, the county’s planning director, at a panel on farmland preservation at the Idaho Farm and Ranch Conference on Jan. 4. She called the results — how much ag ground the county had been ceded to low-density residential development not tied to a farm or ranch operation — “horrifying.