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Travel With Pam & Holiday Vacations
Date: 5/26/12-7/1/12
June Dairy Breakfast Schedule
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Green Co. Dairy Breakfast
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Farm Events: |
Farm News: Use-Value Assessment WorkingcommentsPosted: 01.21.2011
The number of acres farmland lost in Wisconsin continues to decrease due in large part to the state’s use value assessment law says the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation.
A total of 6,702 acres of farmland were diverted to other uses in 2009 according to the Wisconsin Agricultural Statistics Service. The number of acres lost was as high as 90,971 acres in 1993, and remained over 60,000 throughout the rest of the 1990s.
It was 2000 when the use value law was fully implemented that the rapid loss of farmland slowed. For decades, taxes where shifted to farmland under a market value system that assessed values on potential development rather than the realities of growing crops and raising livestock.
The Wisconsin Farm Bureau had always maintained that farmers needed fairness in the way farmland was taxed. In 1995 the Farm Bureau successfully lobbied to change the law so farmland is taxed based on its current use rather than potential.
The decline in the amount of Wisconsin farmland diverted to other uses has been dramatic:
* 44,403 acres in 2004
* 33,808 acres in 2005
* 23,969 acres in 2006
* 15,228 acres in 2007
* 8,666 acres in 2008
* 6,702 acres in 2009
“This equitable tax structure helps preserve farmland,” said Paul Zimmerman, Executive Director of Public Affairs for the Wisconsin Farm Bureau. “Farmland is part of the infrastructure needed to maintain our $59 billion agricultural industry, as one in 10 jobs in Wisconsin is tied to production and processing of agricultural commodities.”
“Use value assessment helps keep our farms viable and that benefits Wisconsin’s overall economy,” Zimmerman said. “The use value law continues to be the single most important thing the state has done to preserve farmland and ensure a healthy ag economy. While state government cannot control the world economy or the weather, it did create a property tax structure that keeps Wisconsin farm families competitive with their colleagues from other states and nations.”
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