Agricultural Easements
A business tool for your farm's productivity
Autumn grape vines
If you are a farmer who wants to stay in farming and would like to access some of the equity in your property, an agricultural easement is an ideal business tool for you to consider.
Agricultural easements are voluntary restrictions on the use of privately owned land. They are flexible documents that can be modified to incorporate the particular interests of both the farmer and a qualified organization like a land trust.
Agricultural easements are designed to uphold the agricultural uses of the land, while allowing broad discretion to the farmer on how to farm. They are primarily concerned with removing development pressures from the land and prohibiting practices that would damage or interfere with its agricultural use. These easements are designed to maintain the profitability of farms while offering useful economic options to a farmer. Fundamentally, they acknowledge that farms are working landscapes.
Agricultural easements are granted in perpetuity, meaning that all future owners of the land must respect the uses set forth in the document.
Landowner Benefits
Landowners choose to donate or sell farmland conservation easements for a variety of reasons. Most often, they are interested in being able to access the equity in their land without selling their property outright. This compensation can be substantial. In fact, if a property is too close to a town or city, the development rights may be too expensive for the land trust to purchase them. In this case, the farmer may choose a bargain sale and make a tax deductible donation of the remaining portion to the land trust. Alternatively, if a property is far from an urban area and will not be developed in the foreseeable future, then the value of its development rights may be too low for the farmer to be interested in an agricultural easement. Overall, for farmers who are often land rich and cash poor, an easement can allow access to some of their cash equity.
Almond harvest
There are other economic benefits to agricultural easements. If a farmer wants to ensure that his children can inherit the farm without having to sell or subdivide it to pay the estate taxes, an agricultural easement will reduce the farm’s appraised value, likely resulting in lower property and estate taxes. Easements are regularly used in estate planning to keep family farms and ranches in the family. Furthermore, if you donate all or part of the value of the agricultural easement, you can receive substantial income tax deductions.
Currently, the primary barrier that Sequoia Riverlands Trust faces in acquiring agricultural easements is limited public and local funds to offer farmers. While our land trust is successful at applying for state and federal funding, the demand for agricultural easements exceeds available funding streams. Sequoia Riverlands Trust advocates for more funds to be made available to farmers, not only so they can utilize an important business tool in managing their operations, but also for sustaining the regional economy of the southern San Joaquin Valley into the future and ensuring the food security for the United States since our region is so agriculturally productive and strategically important to our national food supply.
How Do I Get Started?
The first step to an agricultural easement is to contact Sequoia Riverlands Trust and submit an Agricultural Easement Application. We can answer further questions and, after a site visit, assess if the farm or ranch has significant conservation values and resources that will garner funding.
Sequoia Riverlands Trust regularly partners with the California Farmland Conservancy Program (CFCP) to fund agricultural easement acquisitions. The CFCP model easement can familiarize you with the basic structure of an agricultural easement.
What Does the Easement Process Involve?
- Contact Sequoia Riverlands Trust - We will help familiarize you with agricultural easements and answer any questions you may have.
- SRT Agricultural Easement Application – This application will provide SRT with information needed to assess the strategic importance and conservation values of your farm or ranch.
- Site Visit – SRT staff will schedule a time to visit the property with you.
- Documentation – Before the easement is closed, SRT will facilitate the preparation of a number of documents including a preliminary title report, appraisal, mineral remoteness assessment and baseline report.
- Agricultural Easement – SRT will negotiate the deed of conservation easement with you.
- Approval by SRT Board of Directors
- Agricultural Easement Recorded. The agricultural easement will be signed and recorded. The signed agricultural easement will be entered into county records.