Connecticut’s farmland and open space—long protected as pillars of food security, environmental stewardship, and community identity—are now facing an unprecedented threat from within state government itself. Recent changes to Public Act 490 (PA-490), the statute that was designed to shield farmland, forest land, and open space from speculative taxation, has instead produced extreme and unexplained land valuation increases, in some cases exceeding 2,300% in a single assessment cycle.