That's why we're intrigued by a proposal that the Manatee County Farm Bureau presented to county commissioners this month to save some green space. Under the proposed Rural Land Stewardship program, farmers would receive an incentive to remain in agriculture.

Money.

Not free money, though.

The program would allow landowners to sell density credits to developers, who would then apply those credits elsewhere in the county. Landowners selling credits would have to agree to never develop the land. That earth would remain agricultural.

So farmers would be able to benefit from any run-up in land prices, just not as much as they would from completely selling out and seeing their land become a neighborhood or a mall.

That sounds like a win-win for farmers and land conservation.

But it also appears to be a possible loss for anyone living near land that gained a bunch of density credits.

Still, the program has merit.

WilsonMiller Inc., a planning, design, engineering and environmental services company with offices across the state, conducted a study for the Manatee County Farm Bureau. In its survey, 19 Manatee County landowners expressed interest in a Rural Land Stewardship program. Those landowners represent 26,265 acres of the 250,000 privately owned acres potentially available for the program.

Collier County implemented a land stewardship program five years ago with "tremendous success," according to Anita Jenkins, a Naples-based regional manager for WilsonMiller who worked on the report for Manatee County. Collier currently has 25,000 acres set aside in the program with another 25,000 pending.

The new city of Ava Maria - located on 5,000 acres about 25 miles east of Naples and envisioned by Tom Monaghan, the billionaire founder of the Domino's Pizza chain - would not exist without Collier County's land stewardship program. The purchase of density credits allowed plans to move forward.

St. Lucie County is also working on implementing a stewardship program.

Brenda Rogers, director of Manatee County's Agriculture and Natural Resources Department, said her office is working on gathering more information on other federal and state programs. Plus, Florida officials are reviewing the state's rules for stewardship programs, and those rules could change. Manatee officials expect to present new information on those issues to county commissioners next April.

Rogers is also looking at designing a program unique to Manatee County. County commissioners have asked whether density credits should remain out east, where infrastructure would need to be constructed, or be brought west, where infrastructure already exists. If commissioners decide to allow those density credits into the urban area, the county would need to design its own program and state approval would be required since that would take the program out of a rural zone.

That kind of unique program, though, would give landowners another option for keeping property agriculture while still benefitting from rising property values, Rogers said.

We'll be hearing more about this in the coming months. But it portends much potential for preserving precious farmland.

Talk back

Should Manatee County implement a land stewardship program? As an owner of farmland, would you participate? Share your views at bradenton.com/opinion.