A review of how Collier County’s landmark rural growth plan is working has been looming since the plan was approved in 2002.

Few could have envisioned, though, that the county-appointed review committee would be meeting Tuesday in an academic building at Ave Maria University.

The university and its companion town, Ave Maria, rising out of farmland south of Immokalee, are the most dramatic signs of the 2002 plan’s effect on the county’s Rural Land Stewardship Area. Another new town, Big Cypress, is in the works.

The fate of Collier County’s citrus groves, vegetable farms and pasture has become a question for the review committee, which has asked for more details about how the agricultural landscape has changed.

A critique of Collier County’s rural growth plan by the state Department of Community Affairs also raises questions about whether the plan is living up to one of its goals of preserving agricultural land and stopping its premature conversion to towns, villages and hamlets.

A Jan. 18 draft report by Collier County government showed the Rural Land Stewardship Area had almost 94,000 acres of agricultural land in 2002 compared to some 85,600 acres in 2007 — an 8,400-acre reduction. Row crops posted the largest loss; the only category showing an increase was fallow land.

Conversion of farmland to urban uses was expected with the 2002 plan. In fact, part of the plan’s intent was to identify farmland most appropriate for development, said WilsonMiller CEO Alan Reynolds, whose firm large rural landowners hired to create the plan.

“The data show the program is doing precisely what it is intended to do,’’ Reynolds said.

The 2002 plan assessed the environmental value of almost 200,000 acres around Immokalee. The most valuable land is designated for potential preservation. If landowners preserve the land, they get credits to develop on less environmentally valuable land. Agricultural land is included in both categories.

Landowners have preserved more than 24,000 acres of agricultural land in exchange for development credits, according to the county review. Another 32,000 acres of preservation, much of it also agriculture, is pending approval.

The DCA report takes issue with a lack of incentive to preserve more intensely farmed land, which is designated for development.

“In this respect, the Collier program is not protecting and conserving agricultural lands,’’ the report states.

The DCA report counts more than 6,000 acres of farmland planned for conversion to urban uses at Ave Maria and at the proposed neighboring town of Big Cypress.

Because the county has not approved Big Cypress, the county’s preliminary tally of agricultural land between 2002 and 2007 reflects only the loss of some 5,000 acres of farmland at Ave Maria.

That doesn’t account for all of the 8,400 acres of lost agricultural land in the draft county report, and review committee members and environmental advocates have asked for a more detailed accounting.

Florida Wildlife Federation field representative Nancy Payton said a closer look should reveal whether the county is losing farmland in parts of the rural area the plan is trying to save or whether the farm land is being lost in places where the plan envisioned development in the first place.

Some of the lost agricultural land also might be attributable to landowners earning extra development credits by restoring farms and pastures to wetlands and habitat, she said.

“I’m not convinced there’s a problem,’’ Payton said.

Conservancy of Southwest Florida government relations manager Nicole Ryan said the plan should be more specific about directing growth away from “prime agricultural lands.’’

“It’s finding that balance,’’ she said.

Collier County Audubon Society advocate Brad Cornell said less agricultural land might be an outcome that “we’ll just have to live with.’’

“It may be the farmers don’t want to farm, and we can’t make them,’’ he said.