ABSTRACT
Working agricultural landscapes provide a rich variety of environmental services: essential food and fiber, wildlife habitat, groundwater recharge, air pollution and carbon dioxide absorption, and scenic viewsheds. Most states have passed enabling legislation that allows county and municipal governments to use a variety of planning tools, such as agricultural zoning, the purchase of development rights, and the transfer of development rights to help direct growth away from farming areas. Ultimately, protecting the farmland base, ensuring profitable farming, and implementing environmentally responsible farming methods are all necessary for sustainable agricultural operations. The federal government has provided relatively little direction for state and local governments in planning for farmland protection. If agriculture is part of the local economy, planners can discuss it in the natural resources inventory, economic base, and land use sections of the comprehensive plan. Many local governments listed farmland as "vacant" on their current and future land-use maps.
