Jun. 9--Nearly two years after a state task force issued comprehensive recommendations on how to stem further loss of Wisconsin's dwindling agricultural fields, a new effort is being launched to win approval of legislation needed to preserve farmland.

"There's a growing sense in Wisconsin that we need to do a better job protecting our valuable lands," said Rod Nilsestuen, secretary of the state Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, who created the Working Lands Steering Committee in 2005.

"We're No. 1 in the Midwest for how fast we're losing farmland, 30,000 acres a year."

Nilsestuen said he called committee members back together last week to gather their input as he moves to reinvigorate his efforts to win approval of some of the committee's most important recommendations.

Among the key committee proposals he said he will push in the next state budget process and/or through separate legislation is a wholesale revamping and strengthening of the state's Farmland Preservation Program.

"When it was inaugurated in 1978, it was perhaps the most significant such program in the country," Nilsestuen said. "But now its effectiveness has eroded."

The committee's recommended changes to the program include:

--Setting a flat per-acre tax credit for landowners instead of basing the credit on household income, as is done now.

--Requiring all land in the program to be zoned for exclusive agricultural use.

--Streamlining the process of applying for the program and claiming the tax credits.

Nilsestuen said the Farmland Preservation Program still has 8 million acres in exclusive agricultural zoning. In its revamped form, the program would be a more powerful tool to help local governments protect farmland from development.

Another key committee recommendation Nilsestuen said he plans to push during the next session of the Legislature is creation of agricultural enterprise areas. In such areas landowners would enter into agreements that the land would remain in farm production for 15 to 20 years in exchange for financial incentives.

The goal is to preserve large contiguous areas of working farmland by protecting it from the encroachment of residential lots that break up productive fields.

"Farming requires a lot of land, and when it gets chewed up and parcelized you start creating a negative momentum that becomes difficult to stop," Nilsestuen said.

Also high on his list of legislative priorities is winning approval of a state program to purchase development rights.

Under such a program, landowners agree to sell all future rights to develop their land to a municipality, town or other organization. That agreement is attached to the land title, similar to a conservation easement, and binds all future owners, who are free to farm, use the land for other purposes or sell it -- but not to developers.

Without the potential for development, the land prices remain affordable for farming.

A handful of communities around the state have purchase-of-development-rights programs in place to preserve farmland and protect open space.

Nilsestuen said creating a state program would leverage federal funds that would be used to help pay for the development easements.

He said he does not expect any of these initiatives to cost the state additional money.