We've received more good news from our friends at American Farmland Trust. Wisconsin, one of America's great agricultural states, has joined a growing list of states that includes Pennsylvania, Maryland, New York and Delaware, making major strides toward the preservation of farmland.

Wisconsin's new Working Lands Initiative will modernize the state's 30-year-old Farmland Preservation Program, develop a statewide Purchase of Agricultural Conservation Easements program, and create Agricultural Enterprise Areas to encourage agriculture in specific areas in each county. According to The New Berlin Land Conservancy, the state's agriculture officials believe the initiative "could go a long way toward ending the trend of 30,000 acres of working Wisconsin land being converted to other uses every year."

As our friend Bob Wagner at American Farmland Trust put it:

Approval for this initiative underscores the salient point that farms offer more than pastoral beauty—they are the backbone of regional economies and communities, provide food for our tables, and offer significant opportunity to protect our environment and natural resources.

Curbing sprawl and preserving more land capable of producing healthy food for generations to come...Bravo Wisconsin!

If you’d like to learn more about the efforts of AFT go to: American Farmland Trust: Saving the Land that Sustains Us

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