New Conservation Easement Reports Offer Valuable Suggestions
American Farmland Trust releases a study on local farmland protection programs showing importance of local planning.
Compiled by staff
Published: Sep 25, 2006
Two new American Farmland Trust (AFT) reports provide valuable information for farmland protection programs and show a crucial link between local planning and effective easement programs.
"Strong planning policies and land use regulations assist easement programs by helping reduce acquisition costs and guide easement location. In addition, compatible easement programs can support planning policies by softening the landowner burden of zoning regulation," explained Alvin D. Sokolow, project director, University of California-Davis.
AFT generated the two reports, "A National View of Agricultural Easement Programs: How Programs Select Farmland to Fund - Report 2" and "Easements and Local Planning - Report 3," from the first national assessment of local agricultural easement programs. The study draws its information from 46 programs in 15 states - a total of 1.1 million acres protected by $2.3 billion, making up nearly half of U.S. publicly funded farmland protection. University of California's Agricultural Issues Center joined AFT in conducting the study, with additional support from Farm Foundation.
Twenty-six states have publicly funded agricultural easement programs. Easement programs give landowners the option to sell their farm's development rights to nonprofit or government organizations under the condition of maintaining the land permanently for agricultural use.
Both reports, as well as the preceding 2003 report, are available at www.farmland.org and www.farmfoundation.org. The final report of this study, covering measurements of success in farmland easements, will be released in November.
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