Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T23:05:09.986Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Cultivating opportunity: do land transfer tools improve land access for beginning farmers?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 November 2017

Samuel Ethan Plotkin  and
Neva Hassanein
Samuel Ethan Plotkin*
Affiliation:
Leelanau Conservancy, Leland, MI, USA
Neva Hassanein
Affiliation:
University of Montana, Missoula, Montana, USA
*
Author for correspondence: Samuel Ethan Plotkin, E-mail: seplotkin@gmail.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A vast amount of agricultural land in the USA will change hands in the coming years as established farmers age and transition out of farm ownership. As a result, beginning farmers are likely to continue to face numerous obstacles as they try to find and purchase the property. Two of the greatest barriers include the high price that farm property usually commands and the steady conversion of farmland to non-agricultural uses (e.g., suburban development). Non-profit organizations and government agencies have used conservation easements extensively to protect against conversion of agricultural land, but, too often, that does not ensure affordability for beginning farmers. Accordingly, advocates have developed supplemental land transfer tools intended to enhance conservation easements and help beginning farmers gain access to land. In this exploratory research, we look at two of these novel tools, namely Conservation Buyer Programs (CBPs) and the option to purchase at agricultural value (OPAV). Specifically, we present case studies about two entities that use OPAV and two that use CBPs in order to understand how these tools function and whether they improve land access for beginning farmers. Interviews with professionals and beginning farmers who have worked with these tools in four states inform our analysis and add depth to previous scholarship. We found that OPAV and CBPs can improve access to agricultural land for beginning farmers under certain circumstances. These tools, however, are not panaceas to the challenge land affordability presents, nor are they the only tools used by the entities we studied. CBPs alone have rarely been used to help new farmers; yet, they have been paired effectively with a conservation easement and OPAV. Additionally, we found a similar tool, the simultaneous sale, has been quite effective when paired with OPAV, and less costly than the traditional conservation buyer approach. All of these tools expand the land access toolbox in important ways, but given the paucity of existing scholarship on this topic, additional research is needed. Practitioners and researchers must think critically about whether these tools are the most effective instruments to employ in the effort to get beginning farmers on the land.

Keywords

Beginning farmerconservation easementland accessland transfer toolsland trustprivate land conservation
Type
Preliminary Report
Information
Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems , Volume 34 , Issue 4 , August 2019 , pp. 271 - 279
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ahearn, M (2011) Potential challenges for beginning farmers and ranchers. Choices: The Magazine of Food, Farm and Resource Issues 26, 1–6.Google Scholar
Ahearn, M and Newton, D (2009) Beginning Farmers and Ranchers. Washington, DC: US Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, Economic Information Bulletin 53.Google Scholar
Beckett, J and Galt, RE (2014) Land trusts and beginning farmers’ access to land: exploring the relationships in coastal California. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development 4, 29–35.Google Scholar
Byrd, KB, Rissman, AR and Merenlender, AM (2009) Impacts of conservation easements for threat abatement and fire management in a rural Oak woodland landscape. Landscape and Urban Planning 92, 106–116.Google Scholar
Chang, K (2016) 2015 National Land Trust Census. Washington, DC: Land Trust Alliance.Google Scholar
Cheever, F (1996) Public good and private magic in the Law of land trusts and conservation easements: A happy present and a troubled future. Denver University Law Review 73, 1077–1102.Google Scholar
Daniels, T and Bowers, D (1997) Holding Our Ground: Protecting America's Farms and Farmland. Washington, DC: Island Press.Google Scholar
Equity Trust (2012) Preserving Affordable Working Farms. Turner Falls, MA: Equity Trust.Google Scholar
Gillespie, GW and Johnson, SE (2010) Success in farm start-ups in the Northeastern United States. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development 1, 31–48.Google Scholar
Heimlich, RE and Anderson, WD (2001) Development at the Urban Fringe and Beyond: Impacts on Agriculture and Rural Land. Washington, DC: US Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, Agricultural Economic Report No. 803.Google Scholar
Hesse-Biber, SN and Leavy, P (2006) The Practice of Qualitative Research. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications Ltd.Google Scholar
Johnson, K (2008) Conserving farmland in california: For what and For whom? how agricultural conservation easements Can keep farmland farmed. Sustainable Development Law & Policy 9, 45–75.Google Scholar
Kauffman, NS (2013) Credit markets and land ownership for young and beginning farmers. Choices: The Magazine of Food, Farm and Resource Issues 28, 1–5.Google Scholar
King, MA and Fairfax, S (2006) Public accountability and conservation easements: learning from the uniform conservation easements Act debates. Natural Resources Journal 46, 65–129.Google Scholar
Lynch, L, Gray, W and Geoghegan, J (2007) Are farmland preservation program easement restrictions capitalized into farmland prices? What Can a Propensity Score Matching Analysis Tell Us? Review of Agricultural Economics 29, 502–509.Google Scholar
Merenlender, AM, Huntsinger, L, Guthey, G and Fairfax, SK (2004) Land trusts and conservation easements: who is conserving what for whom? Conservation Biology 18, 65–76.Google Scholar
Morris, AW (2008) Easing conservation? conservation easements, public accountability, and neoliberalism. Geoforum 39, 1215–1227.Google Scholar
Nickerson, C, Morehart, M, Kuethe, T, Beckman, J, Ifft, J and Williams, R (2012) Trends in U.S. Farmland Values and Ownership. Washington, DC: US Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, Economic Information Bulletin 92.Google Scholar
Nickerson, CJ and Lynch, L (2001) The Effects of Farmland Preservation Programs on Farmland Prices. American Journal of Agricultural Economics 83, 341–351.Google Scholar
Oberholtzer, L, Clancy, K and Dixon Esseks, J (2010) The future of farming on the urban edge: insights from fifteen U.S. counties about farmland protection and farm viability. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development 1, 59–75.Google Scholar
Olson, RK and Lyson, TA (1999) Introduction. In Olson, Richard K and Lyson, Thomas A (eds). Under the Blade: The Conversion of Agricultural Landscapes. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, pp. 1–14.Google Scholar
Parsons, R, Ruhf, K, Stevenson, GW, Baker, J, Bell, M, Epley, E, Gilbert, J, Hinton, C and Keller, J (2010) The FarmLASTS Project: Farm Land Access, Succession, Tenure and Stewardship. Vermont: The FarmLASTS Project, University of Vermont.Google Scholar
Plotkin, SE (2015) Cultivating opportunity: land transfer tools to support land access for beginning farmers. MS Thesis, University of Montana, Missoula.Google Scholar
Pocewicz, A, Kiesecker, JM, Jones, GP, Copeland, HE, Daline, J and Mealor, BA (2011) Effectiveness of conservation easements for reducing development and maintaining biodiversity in sagebrush ecosystems. Biological Conservation 144, 567–574.Google Scholar
Ramsay, J (2014) Farmland Access Program. Presentation for Farmland Access Workshop. Burlington, VT: Vermont Land Trust.Google Scholar
Raymond, L and Fairfax, SK (2002) The ‘shift to privatization’ in land conservation: a cautionary essay. Natural Resources Journal 42, 599–639.Google Scholar
Rippon-Butler, H, Ackoff, S, Hansen, E and Shute, LL (2015) Finding Farmland: A Farmer's Guide to Working with Land Trusts. Tivoli, NY: National Young Farmers Coalition.Google Scholar
Rissman, AR and Merenlender, AM (2008) The conservation contributions of conservation easements: analysis of the San Francisco Bay area protected lands spatial database. Ecology and Society 13, 40.Google Scholar
Rissman, AR and Sayre, NF (2012) Conservation outcomes and social relations: a comparative study of private ranchland conservation easements. Society and Natural Resources 25, 523–538.Google Scholar
Ruhf, K and Immerman, G (2002) Who Will Farm, The Natural Farmer, Winter, pp. 19–22.Google Scholar
Schwartz, S, Shute, LL, Ackoff, S and Kane, E (2013) Farmland Conservation 2.0: How Land Trusts Can Protect America's Working Farms. Tivoli, NY: National Young Farmers Coalition.Google Scholar
Shute, LL, Anderson, A, Bernhardt, H, Creech, T, Fleming Severine, vT, Oakley, E and Shute, B (2011) Building A Future with Farmers: Challenges Faced by Young, American Farmers and A National Strategy to Help Them Succeed. Tivoli, NY: National Young Farmers Coalition.Google Scholar
U.S. Department of Agriculture/National Agriculture Statistics Service (1984) 1982 Census of Agriculture. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Agriculture.Google Scholar
U.S. Department of Agriculture/National Agriculture Statistics Service (2014) 2012 Census of Agriculture. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Agriculture.Google Scholar
Wagner, B and Ruhf, K (2013) Does the Option at Agricultural Value Protect Farmland for Beginning Farmers?: A Policy Analysis. Keene, NH: Land for Good.Google Scholar
Wright, JB and Czerniak, RJ (2000) The rising importance of voluntary methods of land use control in planning. Journal of Planning Education and Research 19, 419–423.Google Scholar