It might not grow crops worth a darn, yet some of the region's worst farmland is bringing in big bucks.

In the last year, county assessors have watched land they value as marginal and waste sell at escalating prices, including land with easements registered in government conservation programs. While this is a boon to farmers selling the land for hunting and recreation, it could prove a bane to others as assessors wrangle with valuing this property fairly.

Government conservation programs like RIM and the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP), created in part to reduce pollution, have helped create the sales market. These programs pay farmers to take marginal land out of production. In turn, property values drop to anywhere from 80 percent of the tillable rate to just under $200 per acre, depending on the county.

To date, RIM land accounts for most sales. CREP is a newer program implemented initially in the Minnesota River watershed.

As of May 5, the Minnesota Board of Soil and Water Resources reported 2,354 CREP easements totaling 97,695.1 acres. Southwest Minnesota accounts for 1,607 of the easements or 69,598.3 acres. State spending so far comes to $63,613,332.26 statewide, $44,630,264.40 of it in the region.

An additional 6,045 acres, more than half of them in the region, are awaiting approval. With these submissions, applications exceed by 3,072 acres the watershed's 100,000-acre cap.

Some RIM land in Renville County recently sold for $1,875 an acre. Other counties with wetlands and woods have recorded sales as high and higher, but Zimmer said he never expected this phenomenon to cross into Renville, where land is flat and well ditched and tiled. Yet close to 10,000 county acres that once carried tillable value now sit in CREP and might potentially sell for considerably more than the current assessed value of just under $200 an acre.

"All of a sudden we got hunting groups that obviously have money," Zimmer said. "Some of these (lands) have been in RIM for two or three years and the tile have been broken and the fields in some cases are flooded. And all of a sudden we're seeing these horrendous sales. You can go out and buy two for one of good acres if you put in one of these programs and sell it at these prices."

Values and sales prices on low and non-tillable land vary across the region, said Rick Hauge, an appraiser from Redwood County. Demand is greatest for land with woods and/or water. Bare grassland is worth the least.

"The bigger parcels are selling for more than little ones," Hauge said. "People can acquire more privacy."

With perceptions of marginal and waste land changing, some county assessors said they want state guidelines for valuing this property.

A state directive is forthcoming in several weeks, said John Hagen, manager of the information and education section of the property tax division. But it's a hard call.

"In some cases the highest and best use might be wild lands," Hagen said. "But in definition, this is good for the environment, so why penalize people for doing what's right?"

Even if wild land is a parcel's best use, conservation programs restrict its utilization, Edward Pederson, Swift County assessor said.

"But on the other hand, we see that it's selling for just as high as much of the tillable land," Pederson said. "In six or seven years from now, that may be a different story. As we get more sales I think it will become clear what that land should be valued."

Bob Anderson, Meeker County assessor said he hopes it doesn't come to differentiating between such things as buffer strips and duck ponds.

Meanwhile, McLeod County is considering different values for CREP and RIM land, though some residents say these categories deserve equal treatment, said Hal Kirchoff, assessor. Government payments for perpetual easements run considerably higher on CREP land, and RIM acres tend to sell for less, though not always.

"Once you go into RIM or CREP you loose all your rights and all that's left is recreation or hunting," Kirchoff said.

CREP is likely to create the greatest valuation problems, said Carol Schotz, Chippewa County assessor. The program awards farmers one payment up front and then provides an income stream for more than a decade. Whether property sells with or without the income stream makes a huge difference in the sale price and in turn on property values, which are derived from land sale prices.

Additionally, speculators buying land to enroll it in a conservation program or land already awaiting CREP or RIM approval skew agriculture land values, Schotz said. One parcel with a potential CREP easement sold recently for $1,542 an acre. Unless parcels contain a majority of approved CREP or RIM acres, the state requires these prices recorded as farmland sales.

"It's not fair to other farmers," Schotz said.

Consequently, she's looking at expanding the green acres program this year, which places two values on land ­- an actual value and a lower value used for assessment purposes for as long as the land is farmed.

"They're making farmers compete against people who have poor land that they're not going to use for farming purposes," said Gale Bondhus, Cottonwood County assessor.

When 154 acres of mixed marginal and conservancy land in Cottonwood County sold in 1999 for $91,000, she considered the price high compared to its value, Bondhus said. The property resold in March 2000 for $166,000 or about $1,078 an acre. Similar land best suited for hunting now is going for up to $1,300.

Another property with combined low and no tillable value recently sold for nearly $1,000 an acre. The county values it at $456 an acre, Bondhus said.

With close to 70 percent of Big Stone County's tax capacity coming from agriculture, it hurts every time an acre goes into a conservation program at a lower value, said Sandy Vold, assessor.

"The tax base you lose is tremendous and then the implication it has on everyone else -- all you're doing is shifting that tax base," Vold said. "At this point, it doesn't look like (conservation land) is less valuable and it might be more valuable."