Rising land prices in Minnesota hamper conservation efforts
By Dan Gunderson, Minnesota Public Radio

Rising land prices could hurt efforts to improve waterfowl habitat in Minnesota. The state duck plan calls for preserving two million acres of habitat.

But land prices are steadily rising all across the state, driven by pressure from developers, interest from investors and strong farm income.

Those higher land prices are making it hard for conservation programs to compete for land.

Minnesota land values rose an average of 10 percent each year since 1998 and in the last two years land prices went up even faster. Minnesota wants to restore and protect two million acres of waterfowl habitat to help increase waterfowl populations.

But the people who administer state and federal conservation programs say it's getting more difficult to compete with rising land prices.

Most conservation programs pay landowners for agreeing to not develop or farm the land. You cannot graze it or farm it and it can't be built on.

Wetland Restoration Specialist John Voz administers the USDA Wetland Reserve Program, or WRP. "What's happening is that land prices are going up so rapidly that we're having a hard time making a good enough offer for landowners to enter into programs such as WRP," says Voz. Like many conservation programs, the Wetland Reserve Program pays landowners who agree to follow rules designed to protect habitat.

Last year Minnesota led the nation in Wetland Reserve Program signups, according to Voz. This year he says the federal government reduced the payment landowners get, and interest in the program declined. Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources Conservation Easement Manager Kevin Lines says government programs that pay farmers to keep land out of production can't match what the farmers could get if they sell the land.

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources is also affected by rising land prices. The DNR is generally not involved in easement programs, but does buy land for habitat preservation. A DNR official says in 10 years the average price the agency pays for land has quadrupled, from $500 an acre $2,000 an acre. It's not just farmland that costs more. In many counties the price for hunting land is rising even faster. So landowners may be tempted to sell a wetland to wealthy hunters rather than putting the land in a conservation program.