February 7th, 2025
By Angie Doucette
A Path Forward: Agricultural Win in Madison Sets PACE for Change in Wisconsin
This statement can be attributed to Angie Doucette, Midwest Senior Farmland Program Manager
(Madison, WI) On Feb. 5, Gov. Evers announced an $80 million agricultural investment package in the 2025-2027 executive budget to support Wisconsin farmers, farm families, producers, and processors.
American Farmland Trust commends Gov. Evers for this essential and strategic investment in Wisconsin’s $116 billion agricultural industry. Significantly, the executive budget includes a historic line item to refund the state Purchase of Agricultural Conservation Easement (PACE) Program at $15 million. Wisconsin’s PACE Program has remained unfunded since 2011, when funds were rescinded in the state budget deficit.
The PACE program would enable landowners to voluntarily protect their farmland from non-agricultural development through permanent farmland conservation easements. Many farmers would like to see their land stay in farming as part of their legacy. Easements allow farmers to ensure the land stewarded by part generations will stay in farming long after they are gone. Funding the PACE program would provide farmers with the option to secure their legacy into the future.
Refunding PACE represents a critical investment in our farmland, farming communities, and farm families. According to a recent economic impact study, a $15 million allocation to PACE will yield a $28 million economic impact through purchases of local goods and employee wages, create 152 jobs, and permanently protect 6,400 acres of Wisconsin farmland across 27 farms.
Seventh-generation dairy farmer and easement landowner Kyle Zwieg of Zwieg’s Maple Acres in Ixonia, Wisconsin, shares, “There’s no risk of [the farm] being subdivided or sold for any other purpose than agriculture. I could exist on it and start a family and continue the operation for the sixth and seventh generation.” The easement on Zwieg’s farm was partially funded through the PACE program in 2011, and help by Tall Pines Conservancy. Zwieg credits the easement as the most important decision in securing the sexagenarian farm’s future.
The inclusion of PACE in the executive budget is a monumental win for Wisconsin agriculture, and a critical step in the process to secure funding to safeguard farmland and support farming communities. Representatives of the Assembly and Senate will review and approve elements of the executive budget in the coming months, and AFT is optimistic that funding for PACE will garner bipartisan support as a critical tool to protect Wisconsin farmland, create financial opportunities for landowners, and bolster the state economy.
Wisconsinites can voice their support for refunding PACE here.
###
American Farmland Trust is the only national organization that takes a holistic approach to agriculture, focusing on the land itself, the agricultural practices used on that land, and the farmers and ranchers who do the work. AFT launched the conservation agriculture movement and continues to raise public awareness through our No Farms, No Food® message. Since our founding in 1980, AFT has helped permanently protect over 8 million acres of agricultural lands, advanced environmentally-sound farming practices on millions of additional acres and supported thousands of farm families.