Our economy helps us protect many of our natural resources. Our farms and agriculture are still important parts of our economy. And we always have to be aware of and nurture this interdependence as we work to improve the ways we grow. The typical Ron Dayne game was a study in persistence and sustained effort. By the middle of the third quarter, when a lesser person would be tired, those runs stretched to 7 or 8 yards with the occasional 20 or 30 yard burst.
Land use takes that same dogged persistence and doing more each year.
With 100,000 new neighbors coming our way over the next 25 years, many of them our children, we are going to have to keep working at land use over a long time. But like Ron Dayne, we are going to be able to build on our first year of successes. Later this spring, I ll be releasing some specific proposals to protect farms and farmland. Loss of farmland is a big concern in our part of the country, where the American Farmland Trust has just named southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois as ranking third nationwide in the loss of farmland. Zoning, mitigation, and the purchase of agricultural easements are important tools to protect that farmland, and they are going to be part of my proposal to protect farms.