I grew up in Verona, Wisconsin, which is just southwest of Madison in Dane County. We have a family farm that my uncle lives on and my father built just across the field from. Growing up in a rural agricultural setting instilled upon me the importance of farming not only to my family but to American culture and history. Knowing this, it has been extremely difficult to see multiple neighbors and farm families sell their farmland for development because taxes are too high and they can no longer afford their business. This is a problem not only in the surrounding Madison area but in southern Wisconsin as a whole.
In the past 25, over 800,000 acres of Wisconsin’s prime farmland have been lost to scattered rural residential or urban development. This is a huge number that continues to grow with the amount of people moving out of cities and into their perfect little rural communities. This fragmentation of farmland is not only hurting the farmers themselves but also the integrity of the forested areas and wildlife habitats surrounding the farmland.
The importance of maintaining the farmland in our state comes back to the value we place on farmers and what they do. Farmland near urban areas is more valued by the public as residential land than farmland, which is why property taxes for these farmers have skyrocketed in the past 25 years. This value needs to change so that farmers can continue working the land and producing much needed crops that help sustain a better community.
There are a few programs in place to help keep farmland in working condition, such as conservation easements, purchase of development rights, and farmland preservation plans. These all encourage farmers to continue farming their land through some sort of incentive programs that are all voluntary.
Personally, I think the problem associated with the development of farmland is not just that much needed crops will no longer be grown, but that the farming culture that was so important to southern Wisconsin will become extinct. Farming was a noble profession in the early to mid part of the past century. Many families took pride in the crops they grew and the family farms they established, passing it on to the next generations to farm. Currently there is a lack of this happening. Many sons or daughters of farmers do not wish to carry on the family tradition of farming and want to go on to do bigger and more profitable ventures. This lack of value associated with family farming is also hurting the continuation of farming in the state. The most common situation that is happening is a parent or both parents pass away and the farm is left to the children as a whole, who either do not have invested values in the land or have never been involved in farming it. This leads to the selling of the land and eventually development. I have seen this happen so many times in my hometown of Verona and surrounding areas. My hope is that a change of heart will happen and people will realize how important these farms are not only to the local economies but to preserving the culture and history of Wisconsin.
3 comments:
Being from a rural area and working on a farm for much of my life, I can completely relate to this blog. Most the farms in my area milk between 40 and 150 cows including the farm I work at which we milk around 120. As I grew up I saw more and more small farms shut down due to reasons discussed in your blog. Farming has become almost nearly impossible unless you do it on a large scale. I completely agree with the loss of small farms there is also a loss of the education and values that can’t be taught anywhere else.
Coming from the city of Minneapolis, the majority of my life was sheltered from the "country lifestyle". My freshmen year of college, I had the opportunity to visit and work on a farm. I milked cows, help plant corn, and did anything I could to help, I don't think I have ever worked so hard in my whole life. it was rigorous and challenging, but it was satisfying. I learned how much of a struggle family owned farming is. I agree that something needs to be done to keep the legacy of small scale family farms alive.
I grew up on a mini livestock farm where we grew beef, pork, and chicken for our family needs. This was easy (and fun) because we had a patch of 40 acres of forested land up north, not 120 acres of farmland near the state capital. I also lived in Madison for a few years and absolutely loved going to the farmer's markets. Heck they had them in the surrounding towns like Waunakee as well. They're important to the farming industry but also in helping the city and urban communities coexist. It is disheartening to think that so much land (whether farmland, wetlands, or forests) is being destroyed for development. I think we've done enough to change the environment, we don't need to continue growing and growing until we've got skyscrapers where every farm used to be...might be a bit drastic, but you get the idea.
-Tabi Starjnski-
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