Wisconsin Ag Connection - Wisconsin Farms Selected for Preservation Protection

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Wisconsin Farms Selected for Preservation Protection
Wisconsin Ag Connection - 09/18/2007

More than 1,100 acres of Wisconsin farmland will be protected from development through the USDA Farm and Ranch Lands Protection Program this year. Five working farms, on prime agricultural soils and under development pressure, have been selected, announced Pat Leavenworth, State Conservationist for the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service.

According to the NRCS, Wisconsin loses an average of 32 square miles of prime farmland every year. With funding of $1.61 million, the agency will be able to fund proposals from four different farmland protection programs throughout the state.

"The Farm and Ranch Lands Protection Program is a good tool to help manage land use and focus development away from our prime farmland," says Leavenworth. "It is a voluntary program that helps landowners keep productive farmland in agricultural use through the sale of agricultural conservation easements. Land enrolled in this program will remain in agricultural use and will be farmed according to a conservation plan."

The idea of purchasing of development rights is becoming more popular in Wisconsin now, Leavenworth notes.

"Many eastern states have been doing this for years to safeguard the agricultural land base and channel housing and other development to areas that are more appropriate," she says.

The Farm and Ranch Lands Protection Program provides matching funds to existing farmland preservation programs, such as Land Trusts, and state, or local government programs like the Dane County Agricultural Easement Program. These programs purchase the development rights from farmers and place an agricultural easement on the land. The farm remains in the farmer's hands, but the development pressure is reduced because the perpetual easement keeps the land in agricultural use.

To learn more about the FRPP, visit the NRCS website at: http://www.wi.nrcs.usda.gov/programs/fpp.html