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Welcome to the Capital Area Regional Planning Commission's bi-weekly roundup of news, trends, and events related to regional planning! To see previous edition of this newsletter,
click here.
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- News From Around the Region
- Educational Forum on Farmland Preservation Planning Hosted in Partnership with the Town of Dunn
- DATA UPDATE: Farmland Division and Development of Continues in Dane County
- One Water: Sustainable Management of Life’s Most Essential Resource
- Keeping Up with Regional Planning Partners
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Stay up to date with our roundup of planning and development news around the region.
View the map here
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Educational Forum on Farmland Preservation Planning Hosted in Partnership with the Town of Dunn
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The Capital Area Regional Planning Commission will host an educational session about farmland preservation planning in the Town of Dunn. This special event will take place prior to the commission's regularly scheduled monthly meeting. The event will feature brief presentations on topics related to farmland preservation and a short “talk-back”. The event is open to the public. Members of the public, in particular farm owners and operators and area town representatives, are strongly encouraged to attend and to share their thoughts on the future of agriculture in our region.
Event Details:
Thursday, August 10th
5:30—7:00PM
Dunn Town Hall
4156 County Road B
McFarland, WI 53558
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DATA UPDATE: Farmland Division and Development of Continues in Dane County
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The Capital Area Regional Planning Commission and Dane County inventory land uses approximately every five years. The 2015 land use inventory, recently completed for Dane County, provides new data about changes to agricultural land in the county.
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Size and Contiguity of Land
Large, contiguous blocks of farmland help increase the efficiency of farming, provide greater mobility for wildlife, and reduce land use conflicts between agricultural uses and residential uses. Fragmented farmland can signal increasing development pressure in an area or can be an indication that land was ill-suited for farming in the first place.
Identifying and tracking large agricultural areas can be an important step towards ensuring that the best lands remain in agricultural use. The land use inventory enables us to track contiguous tracts of agriculture greater than 500 acres that are not divided by transportation corridors including local roads.
In 1990 an estimated 54 percent of all agricultural land existed within these large swaths of uninterrupted countryside. By 2015, that number fell to around 20 percent of all agricultural lands.
These large tracts of farmland have become increasingly rare in our region as they are divided up and converted to other uses. Twenty-five years ago, there were around 600 parcels larger than 250 acres in size. Today, there are half that many. By contrast, the number of parcels under 40 acres in size has increased almost threefold in the past two and a half decades. These smaller parcels now account for 17 percent of the agricultural land area in the county, up from only five percent of land in 1990.
These trends illustrate the rapid division of farmlands as lots are split to accommodate additional houses, portions of farms (or farms in their entirety) are sold for development, and road infrastructure extends access into previously remote sections of the county.
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The overall quantity of land—specifically the suitability of that land to farming—is also crucial to understanding the trend of farmland conversion. As of 2015, 108,000 fewer acres of land were classified as an agricultural use than in 1990. “Of the 108,000 acres converted out of farmland, roughly 30 percent were developed and 60 percent were designated as woodlands or open land not under cultivation. The remaining land was reclassified as water, mineral extraction, or recreational lands.”
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Lands better suited to farming were converted to other uses at a much higher rate than the less-than-ideal lands. Between 1990 and 2015, seventeen times as much prime agricultural farmland changed out of agricultural use as did non-prime farmland. The change amounts to roughly 293 acres of prime farmland and 34 acres of non-prime farmland per year. This is due in no small part to just how much high quality farmland exists in our county. In Dane County there is three and a half times as much prime farmland as there is non-prime farmland.
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Prime farmland may also be better suited to development than non-prime land. The characteristics that make ideal farmland also make it attractive for development: the land is cleared of major impediments, few steep slopes, minimal risks of flooding, well-drained soil, no sensitive environmental features, and no conflicting land uses.
These trends highlight the importance of planning to preserve farmland in sufficient quantity and quality to support a viable agricultural economy. Dane County, like other parts of the Midwest contains some of the largest concentrations of the highest quality agricultural soils anywhere. As human populations expand, and arable land decreases worldwide, the need for quality land for food production will only grow.
“Prime” value excludes potentially prime lands—land that would need to be protected from flooding and/or drained—and lands of statewide importance. Including these “potential” areas would bring the ratio to over four times as much prime farmland as there is non-prime farmland.
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One Water: Sustainable Management of Life’s Most Essential Resource
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The One Water approach envisions managing all water, whether it is stormwater, wastewater, drinking water, groundwater, or surface water, with the recognition that it is a different aspect of a common fresh water resource.
One Water approaches are progressing around the county in many areas: from using advanced technologies to recover nutrients and energy from wastewater; to using green infrastructure to manage stormwater in a way that mitigates flooding while beautifying neighborhoods; to watershed-level planning and collaboration to address a variety of water quality issues.
The US Water Alliance was formed in 2008 to bring together diverse interests to achieve solutions to our pressing water challenges. Their publication One Water Roadmap: The Sustainable Management of Life’s Most Essential Resource, is designed to educate communities about the One Water approach and accelerate the adoption of One Water policies and programs that advance a better quality of life for all. The report highlights successful strategies and many real-world examples of the One Water approach being implemented around the country, including the adaptive management efforts to target phosphorus runoff in our own region.
Our fresh water resources are essential to the health and wellbeing of the greater Madison region. The Capital Area Regional Planning Commission is committed to collaborating with other agencies, communities, and organizations to continue to bring the One Water approach to our region.
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Keeping Up with Regional Planning Partners
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Public Health Madison & Dane County teaming with REAP Food Group, the Madison Metropolitan School District and the Madison Parks Division to expand the MMSD Summer Food Program.
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The Clean Lakes Alliance is regularly updating the “Lake-O-Grams” Lake Forecast, an e-map that monitors lake conditions throughout the Yahara River Watershed.
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Events
Next RPC Commission Meeting:
August 10, 2017 @ 7:00pm
Dunn Town Hall
4156 County Road B
McFarland, WI 53558
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