In Florida, landowners can get farm subsidies in the same year that they break ground.Appraisers have granted tax breaks to developers who have already drawn up blueprints, calculated sewage and water use, rezoned the land for residential or industrial uses, and even installed utility lines.

"That is really over the edge, " said Larry Libby, a rural-urban policy professor at Ohio State University.

"That is really exploiting the law for purposes nobody gains from. . . . Somehow or another, agriculture has to be defined in a meaningful way."Farmland preservation experts agree that for tax breaks to benefit genuine farmers and protect agriculture in the long term, states must impose some combination of no-build restrictions, income and size requirements, and financial penalties.

Not only is Florida missing those safeguards, but local property appraisers have not consistently enforced the law's few basic protections.

They have awarded tax breaks on land purchased for more than three times its agricultural value, rezoned for development, or not kept up to farming standards.

'RIPE FOR ABUSE'

"Florida's program is ripe for abuse, and what you are seeing is the kind of abuse that happens any time programs aren't properly structured and apparently not properly enforced either, "said Ralph Grossi, president of American Farmland Trust, a national conservation group. "Just like the IRS tax code, people figure out ways to work around the program... . . Florida hasn't updated its program in a long time, and that's really what the state needs to do now."

The state's appraisers say they have periodically lobbied for reforms but have met resistance. They add that court rulings siding with developers have eroded an already weak law.

"Is it a frustration? Yes, "said Miami-Dade Property Appraiser Frank Jacobs, who was appointed July 1. "But we have to abide by the law and interpretation of the law by the courts."

Newly elected Broward Property Appraiser Lori Parrish agreed that the law makes it difficult to deny the tax break. She said she would ask lawmakers to clarify portions of the statute.

Although growth management and how to pay for it dominated the annual legislative session this spring, agricultural tax breaks never came up. Instead, the Florida House passed a bill that would make it easier for some farmers to get their land rezoned for development.

The measure - which was pushed by a Palm Beach County grove owner seeking development rights - failed to clear the Senate.

VETOED LAST YEAR

Legislators also chose not to set aside money for the Rural Land Protection Act, which would pay landowners to keep farming. Last year, Gov. Jeb Bush vetoed $5 million for the program, which has never received funding since it passed in 2001.

Bush spokesman Russell Schweiss said the governor thinks the law would unnecessarily duplicate the Forever Florida program, which receives about $300 million a year to buy environmentally valuable land.

Proposals to recoup back taxes on farmland that falls to development have come and gone since the 1960s. In 1992, then-state Rep. Hurley Rudd's plan to recoup three years of tax savings was shot down 7-0b y a House committee and never made it to the floor for a vote.

"I knew I was dead going in, and I sure as heck was dead coming out, " said Rudd, who lives in Tallahassee."When you open that chapter of law, the agricultural interests are going to kill you."

BACK TAXES

Tallahassee attorney Phil Blank, who served on a 1991tax reform commission, also advocated a back-tax measure."Today, it would take about 30 seconds for it to die.Maybe 45, " he said. "The agricultural interests and development interests would oppose it, and there's no one on the other side strong enough to rule the day.

"The three most powerful people in Tallahassee -Bush, Senate President Tom Lee and House Speaker Allan Bense - have been developers.Both the developmentand farm lobbies dispatchlegions of lobbyists and generouscampaign contributionsto the Capitol every year.

"We've always feared that once you open the greenbelt law and get it going through the process, someone could take it away, " said Ben Parks, legislative affairs director of the Florida Farm Bureau."We're very protective."Asked about safeguards commonly found in other state laws, Parks said, "We're Florida and we do things differently."

RELIEF - AND FREEDOM

Growth management advocates say that in a state where land is gold, many farmers have become developers-in waiting. They want tax relief while they farm - and the freedom to sell for top dollar later on.

"There's the whole hypocrisy about the poor farmer not being able to farm, but any proposal that encourages farmers to continue farming meets a brick wall up here, "said Janet Bowman, legal director of 1000 Friends of Florida, which advocates growth management. "Florida is going to be completely paved over. . . . Think about Florida without oranges."