Capital Press

7/22/2005

California, Washington and Oregon will receive some additional federal money to preserve farmland in the 2005 fiscal year, due to the reallocation of funds from the federal Farm and Ranch Lands Protection Program.

The three states were among 22 states selected to receive $12 million in reallocated funds, which became available when some of the money distributed to National Conservation Resource Service offices for FY 2005 went unused.

Under the reallocation, California will receive $1.4 million; Washington, $68,641; and Oregon, $17,000. In the original FY 2005 allocation, California received $4.5 million; Washington, $2.05 million; Oregon, $675,634; and Idaho, $1.15 million.

Agriculture Deputy Secretary Chuck Conner said the recent reallocation is part of the federal commitment to conserve natural resources, specifically farm and ranch lands.

During the past three years, the Farm and Ranch Lands Protection Program has protected more than 300,000 acres of working farms and ranches.

The program provides matching funds to help purchase development rights on farmland with the goal of keeping productive farm and ranch land in agricultural use. Working through existing programs, USDA partners with state, tribal or local governments and non-governmental organizations to acquire conservation easements or other interests in land from landowners. In this arrangement, USDA provides up to 50 percent of the fair market easement value of the conservation easement.

In California, the No. 1 agricultural state in the nation, the idea of protecting farmland is of national importance, said Jimmy Daukas, spokesman for the American Farmland Trust.

When looking at the West Coast states, Daukas said, the fruit, vegetable and nut acreage that extends from California north to Oregon and Washington is part of an ongoing battle for land that pits agriculture against development.

“The Farm and Ranch Lands Protection Program ensures that farmers have an option to selling out,” Daukas said.

Ed Thompson, California state director of the American Farmland Trust, said the reallocation of funds is great news. “The demand (for farmland preservation programs) is high,” he said, “but the amount of money available is a fraction of what we need.”

He pointed out that funding from the program has helped in ways that go beyond protecting individual pieces of farmland.

For example, the American Farmland Trust worked successfully with eight landowners on the outskirts of Madera in the Central Valley to acquire development rights on ag land through the federal program — a strategy that directed growth away from the agricultural area and into other areas.