Saving farmland in Chippewa County left to volunteers
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By MARK GUNDERMAN mark.gunderman@lee.net
Wednesday, March 12, 2008 11:12 AM CDT
By big city standards, Chippewa County’s version of urban sprawl is pretty modest. Still, it’s not hard to spot examples of residential neighborhoods taking over areas that were once prime farm land. That sometimes creates conflicts, and cries for authorities to do something to save agriculture areas.
It happened in Chippewa County, and a committee set up to look into the issue and make recommendations gave its final report to the Chippewa County Board Tuesday.
The Agriculture Ad-Hoc Committee’s report showed just how hard it is to make everyone happy on issues dealing with land use. The report recommends public education, advocacy and voluntary programs, but stops well short of sterner measures such as exclusive agriculture zoning that would restrict property rights.
Still, committee chairman Lee McIlquham, one of the few farmers left on a board once dominated by farm area interests, was optimistic about a preservation effort in its infancy.
The committee’s history goes back to February 2006, when the county board approved a comprehensive zoning ordinance that eliminated any prime agricultural zoning district because of lack of interest, according to the ad hoc committee’s report.
Some citizens interested in preserving farm land advocated for more exclusive agriculture zoning. However, trying to enact such zoning also draws protests, as it restricts land use and therefore land values.
“As time went by, it became clear there was a major cost to this. Rural land owners stood up and said ‘not so fast,’” McIlquham said. The major cost could be looked at as either the loss of farm land or the loss of land rights.
The board adopted the zoning plan, and set up the committee consisting of members with diverse interests to look into the farm land issues.
“The biggest thing came with property rights vs. community rights,” McIlquham said. “It was a touchy subject, there’s no two ways about it.”
The committee’s recommendations were finalized in January, stating that the county should:
- Actively advocate for farming as an industry and for the voluntary preservation of agriculture land, and create a budget of local, state and federal funds to implement the committee recommendations;
- Actively inform and educate the public of the importance of agriculture to the local economy, the importance of preserving agriculture land, and the costs of developing agriculture lands;
- Support the efforts of landowners and producers that express interest in preserving their farms, with public resources allocated for groups of landowners who wish to voluntarily preserve blocks of land;
- Seek to assure the costs of dividing land be assigned to those initiating development; and
- Allocate resources for the technical review of the idea of a voluntary incentive program for farm preservation.
Steve Hilger, a Bloomer area farmer and committee member who voiced support for protection of farm land at previous county board meetings, said the committee addressed the issue as best it could.
“It’s probably going to start out as a ‘coalition of the willing’ - people willing to preserve their land,” he said, conceding that laws forcing the preservation of farm land were not among the recommendations.
Farmer Ken Custer expressed hope that people would understand the issue.
“The battle for acreage nationwide is alive and well,” Custer said. “People have to understand the importance of preserving land for growing food and fuel.”
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