Conserving Farmland… But For Whom? Using agricultural conservation easements to improve land ownership by next generation’s farmers

It is unclear who the farmers of the future will be, and how they will afford theland they work. Due to unprecedented residential development pressure, land prices inmany of the state’s most productive agricultural areas have climbed well out of the reachof new farmers. High land prices, coupled with an increasingly marginal, globalizedagricultural industry, have given rise to two interrelated problems: farmland conversionto other uses, and the flight of young people from rural farming communities.Agricultural conservation easements (ACEs) have emerged as a market-based toolto slow farmland conversion by extinguishing development rights on threatened land.Rather than being reduced to a market price consistent with it agricultural incomepotential, easement-encumbered land sells to non-farmers at well beyond its farmingvalue. What can the farmland conservation community do about this?This study frames the ACE—a relatively new farmland conservation tool—in thecontext of land reform; examines the extent to which the ACE and its actors address landtenure currently; and formulates recommendations for improving ACE application.A review of the literature provides background on land reform in the West andwhy we should concern ourselves with land access for beginning farmers. It thendescribes how agricultural conservation easements emerged, how they do and do notaddress land access, and how they might be used to this greater effect. The results ofinterviews with Land Trusts and others ACE practitioners reveal what these groupsanticipate for farm ownership of easement-encumbered parcels, and whether they take anactive role in these outcomes. Several models are then presented whereby land trusts andiiipublic policy are improving land access for farmers. Three of these are illustrated usingdetailed case studies.Finally, recommendations are made that land trusts partner as frequently aspossible with younger-generation farmers to purchase land; include farming and farmsuccession in their selection criteria; improve easement record-keeping practices;consider innovative easement language and provisions; provide assistance to incomingfarmers; work to improve public support for local farmers; and better integrate with landuseplanning and other publicly-administered efforts to conserve farmland and farming