Nate Lewis and Melissa Barker knew that Oyster Bay Farm was for them. “It ticked all the boxes,” says Lewis. Located on the shores of Puget Sound in Olympia, Washington, fertile land and waterfront views make the farm an ideal location.
There was just one problem: Lewis and Barker couldn’t afford to buy the farm or the land it sat on—that is, until they worked with an agricultural land trust.
What is a land trust?
Land Trust may be Nonprofit conservation organizations or, in some cases, government agencies that work to conserve agricultural land in perpetuity.
We don’t eat unless there is farmland to grow crops or farm land for cattle. saving Farmland underpins a stable local food supply. Without agriculture, jobs disappear; 22.1 million Full- and part-time jobs related to the agriculture and food sector in 2022 equaled 10.4 percent of total U.S. employment. Keeping farmland in agriculture is crucial for our food supply and food security and that’s why American Farmland Trust (AFT), a national conservation organization, advocates for keeping farmers and farmland together.
AFT predicted more than that 300 million acres Farmland and farm land may change ownership over the next two decades, with some of it permanently out of agricultural use. When retiring farmers get off the field, they look to the equity they’ve built up on their land on which to retire. This can be a significant amount, especially for young or new farmers May not be able to. (AAccording to USDA’s 2022 Census of AgricultureOnly nine percent account for farmers under the age of 35 All producers.) But real estate developers can afford it.
“Between 2001 and 2021, the nation has lost 11 million acres of farmland,” said Jane Dempsey, director and senior adviser to the Farmland Information Center. AFT “development,” he said, “remains the most significant and direct threat to farmland.”
Ben Miles, Southeast Program Manager Land Trust Alliance (LTA), a member organization with 950 land trusts nationwide. “Most farmers and ranchers can find a buyer willing to purchase their property and develop it, whether it’s a 10-acre lot or a 1/8-acre lot,” he says.
A land trust is able to purchase land outright, remove development potential, and then lease or sell the land to a farmer. It is able to help a beginning farmer if the selling price asked by an existing farmer is too high.
Community land trusts retain ownership of the property while the farmer leases the land back to the trust to farm. But it can be a mixed bag. The farmer owns buildings and machinery, but not land.
[RELATED: Q&A: How Community Land Trusts Help to Preserve Farmland]
“Farmers look at the value of their property going into retirement,” Lewis says. Without land value, it becomes difficult for the farmer to gain equity or retirement savings.
How do land trusts work?
The most popular way a land trust works is through purchase A Conservation facilities: A legally binding agreement between a land trust and a property owner, designed to preserve farms and ranches for agricultural use in perpetuity.
Land comes first Evaluated without any reservation restrictions. This is usually due to the zoning and high value of the land with development potential. It is then evaluated with conservation constraints. The difference between the two values represents the “enjoyment” value of the property. In 2022, AFT and the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service sent a Survey Trust lands throughout the United States. A majority of survey respondents, 88 percent, reported conserving 5.9 million acres of farmland and ranchland through conservation easements.
In the case of Oyster Bay, the former owners sold the property for its fair value Community Farmland Trust. They were then able to retire with equity in their property. Lewis and Barker were able to purchase more affordable properties without the development rights attached. As of 2018, they are producing and selling free-range chicken eggs and meat on the farm’s 40 acres.
“The interest—the dirt, the soil, the property—is in our name,” Lewis said, while the conservation easement is in the name of the land trust. The property owner, in this case Lewis and Barker, retains ownership and use of the land—such as the right to continue farming or raise livestock. The Legal contract A convenience management including purchase and sale of farm property is extremely comprehensive. “Simplifications can be fixed and little changes can be made, but it can be a very challenging process,” says Lewis. As a general rule, once the land is reserved and the easement filed with the Land Records Office, it is binding and travels with the property to all current and future owners. Even if Lewis and Barker sell the property, the terms and restrictions of the easement will remain in perpetuity.
But nothing is perfect. “The ease of our situation reduced the overall cost of the initial purchase in 2018, but now, property values have risen overall, with land values almost the same as before the purchase,” said Lewis.
This is a concern for Lewis and Barker, as they wonder what will happen when it’s their turn to retire and pass the land on. Their daughter does not want to do farming at present. Will the property then become ineligible again?
Lewis also cautions that land trusts can be complex legal complications and should be expected by those who enter into a trust. Lease agreements, succession regulations and the shared responsibilities of land stewardship between the land owning trust and the farmer can take time to work out. It took Lewis and Barker over three years to finally get everything right. All three parties involved (the seller, the land trust, and Lewis and Barker) must develop a detailed description of the sale and conservation restrictions placed on the land. The land trust had to do land surveys and environmental assessments to get a grant that would allow them to purchase the easement. “It takes all the time,” says Lewis.
How can farmers get started with land trusts?
For farmers looking to preserve their land in a trust and for young farmers interested in acquiring farmland, AFT’s Land Transfer Navigator A good place to start is the program in partnership with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service.
“Some land trusts also have programs to connect new farmers with new farmers through farm link programs, or to run incubators or community farms, so they can directly help new farmers get access to land and help them get land,” Miles said. Business has begun.”
Access to land and the ability of young farmers to be able to purchase land is an important issue that can be addressed in the upcoming Farm Bill. Increasing land access, security and opportunity laws One of several bipartisan bills addressing the issue. Led in the House of Representatives by Joe Courtney (D) of Connecticut, Jack Nunn (R) of Iowa and Nikki Budzinski (D) of Illinois, it hopes to prioritize projects that provide direct financial support to farmers, collaborative partnerships and transition farmland involving existing From the producer to the next generation.
“We are in a land access crisis,” Lewis said “As farmers age and look at how they can retire, we need all options on the table.”
Correction: A previous version of this story stated that lAnd trusts are legal agreements administered by nonprofit conservation organizations. A conservation easement is the legal agreement, while a land trust is the entity that holds or owns the easement.
