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New tools offer new hope for saving farmland

JANESVILLE — Thirty years ago, Wisconsin was on the cutting edge of farmland preservation.

The Farmland Preservation Act of 1977 resulted in farmers, through their local governments and the state, protecting 8 million acres in exclusive agriculture zoning.

Things have changed.

The program was allowed to atrophy and was neglected for a whole host of reasons, said Rod Nilsestuen, secretary of the state Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection.

More recently, a hodgepodge of preservation efforts has worked well in some places and not in others.

"There hasn't been a significant emphasis on it in most communities, so it became evident to me very early here that we weren't getting the job done," Nilsestuen said.

Four years go, Nilsestuen formed a committee of residents representing many interests, including environmentalists, farmers, real estate agents, builders and officials from counties, cities, villages and towns.

The goal was to put more tools in the tool kit for governments that want to use them, Nilsestuen said.

The result—the Working Lands Initiative—was included in the state's 2009-11 budget.

It includes a new PACE program that provides money to local governments and groups to give landowners one-time payments to put their lands forever into conservation agriculture easements.

The program has up to $12 million to provide matching grants.

Keith Foye supervises the state's Working Lands Initiative.

"It's what we have to work with now," he said. "The idea is, if we can choose (the easements) in a responsible matter, hopefully the Legislature will authorize additional money."

The state also is eligible for federal money because it has its own preservation program in the Working Lands Initiative, but state officials don't know how much that could mean.

The initiative is important because it is "all about empowering communities," said Bob Wagner of the American Farmland Trust.

"It's not talking about a new state program as much as making tools, options and incentives available to local communities."

It is up to the local entities to decide which PACE applications to forward to the state, Foye said.

Land likely will not be eligible if it is in areas that have been tabbed for development, he said.

In Rock County, towns, cities, villages and the county all have their own zoning, so that could create friction, he acknowledged.

"The towns and the county may have one view and the cities and the villages have another view so, again, at some point, someone may have to deal with that," Foye said.

"As these proposals come in, we'll try to view what would be in the best interest of agriculture."

Foye was asked about Janesville's "urban reserve" area, which the council recently included in its 20-year Smart Growth Plan. Much of the land is on the fertile Rock Prairie.

Some members of the Sustainable Janesville Committee called the designation a "land grab," especially because much of the land won't be developed for 50 years—if at all. Even Nilsestuen wrote a letter, expressing his concern and asking the council to reconsider.

"I know that was somewhat controversial," Foye said. "Is that the best land to turn into cities? Was that a reality given the economic conditions out there?

"I think the local government has some flexibility as far as planning, usually when looking out 10 or 20 years. So to go out 50 years, that is a bit of a stretch." Foye expects differences of opinions between government and landowners.

"Decisions will be made at all different levels," he said.

Besides the PACE program, the initiative includes other tools to preserve farmland, such as:

-- A streamlined farmland preservation tax credit. The former tax credit was cumbersome and outdated and eventually became too much trouble for what it was worth.

-- The creation of agricultural enterprise areas, in which farmers petition local governments and the state to enter into 15-year farmland preservation agreements in exchange for tax credits to create large tracts of land protected from development.

-- Education.

The initiative does not change the current use value taxing program, which helps preserve farmland because farmers are taxed on their lands' agricultural use rather than the market value. The market value usually includes potential development value.

Nilsestuen pointed to Jefferson County, a county halfway between Milwaukee and Madison with a number of rapidly growing communities and a strong business and industrial base.

The county is under intense development pressure, he said. But residents looked around and saw what happened in Dane and Waukesha counties.

Jefferson, after years of planning, has decreased the loss of farmland by 90 percent, Nilsestuen said. That was done mainly through using farmland preservation zoning, directing development to certain areas and increasing the density of developments, Foye said.

"It can be done," Nilsestuen said.