The National Agricultural Lands Study goes out with a bang

Excerpt

“THIS is going to be a very big issue, and it's just geting started,” predicts Edward Thompson, Jr., of the National Association of Counties Research Foundation.

The issue is farmland preservation, and it has been given a big boost by publication of the final report of the National Agricultural Lands Study (NALS) and a followup conference held in Chicago this past February. Thompson's assessment is shared by an array of farm, environmental, and other organizations.

Bob Davies, staff director for rural development with the National Conference of State Legislators (NCSL) came away from the Chicago meeting encouraged. “We've seen a big increase in interest for farmland preservation among state legislators in the last decade,” Davies commented.

Davies' Washington office recently polled key agricultural staff members in state legislatures around the nation (NCSL represents 7,600 state legislators) and found farmland preservation among the three or four top issues on the agricultural agendas of 24 states.

“Farmland protection is important to states in every region of the country,” Davies observed. “I'm particularly happy to see interest spreading from the West and North-east to the South and Midwest. The …