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Protecting Wisconsin’s farm and forest
lands provides benefits for our communities.
• Healthy communities
need healthy farms and forest lands that provide jobs, economic
and ecological benefits, food and fuel security.
• Food
and fiber are grown on rural working lands but often processed
in our cities.
• The new “renewable energy economy” offers
great opportunity for job development and energy security, but
to accomplish this we must protect our land and water resources.
• Communities
that grow in a compact manner avoid increased costs of extending
services like public protection, roads, water and sewer to sprawled
areas. Protecting working lands helps communities grow efficiently
and effectively.
• Amenities like access to open space,
outdoor recreational opportunities and scenery are important to
business and industrial recruitment and retention.
• Wisconsin
can protect its working lands and meet the needs of our communities,
businesses and industries through wise decisions about best use
of our land and water resources. We can make these decisions together
in the best interests of our rural and urban citizens, accommodating
growth and protecting resources for our children and grandchildren.
• Food
security for our communities depends on diverse agriculture systems
that provide local and regional foods to our stores, farmer’s
markets, schools and restaurants.
• Local governments need
tools to achieve wise land use and to protect working lands that
support their economies. Farmland protection strategies provide
some of those tools.
• Rural school districts are struggling
with rising costs and declining enrollments. Farm and forest land
protection can help provide stability and keep taxes affordable
for those who live in rural areas.
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