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State agriculture officials say they don't have any grand illusions about an excess of money being allocated in Gov. Jim Doyle's budget for new programs in this time of fiscal uncertainty.

But they are hopeful the governor will include a long-sought working-lands program when he unveils his biennial budget plans Feb. 17. They say the program could be virtually budget neutral but could go a long way toward ending the trend of 30,000 acres of working Wisconsin land being converted to other uses every year.

State Agriculture Secretary Rod Nilsestuen has tirelessly promoted the working-lands proposal for more than two years. He appointed a bipartisan Working Lands Initiative Steering Committee in 2005 and crafted the recommendations of that committee into a plan to modernize the Wisconsin Farmland Preservation Program, develop a statewide Purchase of Agricultural Conservation Easements program and create Agricultural Enterprise Areas to encourage agriculture in specific areas in each county.

The program wouldn't be as comprehensive or expensive as those in some states, such as Pennsylvania and Maryland, where more than 5,700 easements have protected more than 700,000 acres of farmland. About $1.5 billion has been spent on farmland protection programs in those states over the past 30 years.

Even though Wisconsin's program wouldn't be as elaborate, it would be a good start to preserving working lands.

Conservation easements aren't for everyone. All easement programs that have been created across the country are voluntary - no one is forced to place an easement on their land to prevent the land from being developed at a future date.

But an easement can provide a financial incentive to a landowner to agree to keep the land in agricultural use, when urban development might seem like a good option.

Some farmers say they would never sign away their property rights by agreeing to an easement on their land. Forever is a long time, many farmers say, and they don't know what their ancestors or others they sell the property to might want to do with it in the future.

But Bob Wagner, senior director of farmland protection programs at the American Farmland Trust, said there are good reasons why landowners should consider promising to keep their land in agriculture in perpetuity.

"The alternative to keeping the land in agriculture is also permanent - if you make a decision to put up a Wal-Mart or a parking lot or houses on the land, it's not likely that the land will ever be a cornfield again," Wagner said. "If somebody were to sell the property for a subdivision, they've already made that decision for their grandchildren. They don't have the option of selling the farm as a farm down the road.

"Yes, placing a conservation easement on the land does in effect make decisions for future generations, but so does selling it for development."

Some Wisconsin landowners have already placed conservation easements on their properties through land-protection conservancies. The state's working-lands proposal could help accelerate the process.

It's well-known that Wisconsin's Farmland Preservation Program isn't working as it was intended. The state proposal would attempt to expand and simplify the plan to provide more incentives to landowners and increase the flexibility of local governments to ensure effective farmland protection.

Nilsestuen and others who have been promoting the working-lands proposal should be commended for their foresight and understanding that something must be done soon. As the old saying goes, "God isn't making any more land, so we have to preserve what we've got."

The governor should listen to his agricultural advisers and include the working-lands proposal in his state budget. In a time when there isn't enough money to fund everything people would like to see state government do, this is a program that can be initiated without breaking the bank.