Community Development Graduate Group

It is unclear who the farmers of the future will be, and how they will afford the

land they work. Due to unprecedented residential development pressure, land prices in

many of the state’s most productive agricultural areas have climbed well out of the reach

of new farmers. High land prices, coupled with an increasingly marginal, globalized

agricultural industry, have given rise to two interrelated problems: farmland conversion

to other uses, and the flight of young people from rural farming communities.

Agricultural conservation easements (ACEs) have emerged as a market-based tool

to slow farmland conversion by extinguishing development rights on threatened land.

Rather than being reduced to a market price consistent with it agricultural income

potential, easement-encumbered land sells to non-farmers at well beyond its farming

value. What can the farmland conservation community do about this?

This study frames the ACE—a relatively new farmland conservation tool—in the

context of land reform; examines the extent to which the ACE and its actors address land

tenure currently; and formulates recommendations for improving ACE application.

A review of the literature provides background on land reform in the West and

why we should concern ourselves with land access for beginning farmers. It then

describes how agricultural conservation easements emerged, how they do and do not

address land access, and how they might be used to this greater effect. The results of

interviews with Land Trusts and others ACE practitioners reveal what these groups

anticipate for farm ownership of easement-encumbered parcels, and whether they take an

active role in these outcomes. Several models are then presented whereby land trusts and

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public policy are improving land access for farmers. Three of these are illustrated using

detailed case studies.

Finally, recommendations are made that land trusts partner as frequently as

possible with younger-generation farmers to purchase land; include farming and farm

succession in their selection criteria; improve easement record-keeping practices;

consider innovative easement language and provisions; provide assistance to incoming

farmers; work to improve public support for local farmers; and better integrate with landuse

planning and other publicly-administered efforts to conserve farmland and farming.