TY - JOUR T1 - Regional farmland protection: The Twin Cities experience JF - Journal of Soil and Water Conservation SP - 446 LP - 449 VL - 45 IS - 4 AU - Darrell Napton Y1 - 1990/07/01 UR - http://www.jswconline.org/content/45/4/446.abstract N2 - MINNESOTA'S Metropolitan Agricultural Preserves Act may be one of the most effective farmland protection programs in the nation. A number of state-level farmland protection programs have proven quite effective (4, 5, 6, 17), but this program functions at a regional level, enabling it to meet local needs. Farmland owners have responded by enrolling more than 178,000 acres in Metropolitan Agricultural Preserves (MAP). The Minnesota program encompasses a seven-county area that includes Minneapolis and St. Paul, their suburbs, and the surrounding countryside. This region has more than one million acres of farmland, of which nearly one-fifth (17 percent) is enrolled in the MAP program and an additional 431,000 acres are eligible if the owners choose to enroll (10). The Metropolitan Agricultural Preserves Act provides a state financial framework and authorizes the Metropolitan Council (the Twin Cities regional planning organization) to coordinate long-term farmland protection with local governments. MAP is part of a new class of farmland protection programs that attempt to affect the location and timing … ER -