Editorial: Vanishing croplands

Preserving farmland could pay off for Wisconsin with the nation's new interest in ethanol and other biofuels.

From the Journal Sentinel

Posted: Feb. 6, 2007

Drive on rural roads through southeastern Wisconsin on a chilly February day, and you can still find acres of windblown fields of white stretching into the distance. But the feeling of open space is illusory. Keep driving, and you'll soon run into subdivisions and office parks cropping up everywhere. From the Town of Richfield in Washington County to Pabst Farms in Waukesha County to Waterford in Racine County, farmland and open spaces are rapidly disappearing.

Nor is southeastern Wisconsin alone. The entire state is losing cropland faster than any other state in the Midwest, as Journal Sentinel reporter Amy Rinard detailed in an article last week. That's obviously not good for Wisconsin agriculture. The loss is coming at a time when renewed interest in ethanol and biofuels to replace traditional fossil fuels could pay off big for the state - if there is enough farmland to cash in.

To slow that loss, state Agriculture Secretary Rodney Nilsestuen has proposed several measures that deserve action. The proposals are based on a report by a state task force that included farmers, planners, local officials, businesspeople and builders. They are:

• Creating agriculture enterprise areas to protect clusters of contiguous working farms from development and provide incentives to promote future farming.

• Creating a state program to help local governments and organizations buy development rights to protect land permanently from development.

• Overhauling the state's Farmland Preservation Program.

Purchase of development rights programs may not be the best answer for every community and every farm. Certainly, legitimate concerns about upward pressure on housing prices and other problems need to be addressed. Still, in the right place, and with community support, such programs can be an important tool in preserving valuable farmland.

Rich Eggleston of the Wisconsin Alliance of Cities is right when he argues that not every acre of farmland is sacred. And developers are right when they point out that growth will continue. Still, responsible programs to preserve farmland and the vital agricultural industry it supports can go a long way toward growing a healthy - and diversely broad - Wisconsin economy.

How far should Wisconsin go to preserve farmland and other working lands? E-mail us at jsedit@journalsentinel.com