How to protect agricultural lands

The land use control approach for preserving agricultural lands is obtained through control mechanisms, including land use zoning, land banking, and right to farm legislation.

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Why do we need to protect agricultural land?

Farmland protection strategies used by state and local governments to preserve agricultural lands and protect working farms generally focus on either protecting farmland from conversion to non-farm uses by prohibiting or restricting development on farmland or permanently protecting those lands, or minimizing conflicts between existing agricultural operations and new …

How can we protect working farmland?

Protecting Soil and Agricultural Lands. One of the most important responsibilities of soil and water conservation districts is to educate people of all ages about stewardship practices and the wise use of natural resources. In order for there to be an abundance of natural resources for future generations, everyone needs to take responsibility for their actions today.

What are the best practices for managing agricultural land?

Crops remove carbon monoxide from the air. Prohibiting urban growth on green fields encourages development of brownfields. Application of biosolids to farmland can benefit society by providing an economic way of disposing of urban waste while providing the farmer with inexpensive nutrients.

Should we preserve agricultural land for food and fiber production?

AFT is the national leader in protecting farmland with agricultural conservation easements. Twenty-nine states have a farmland protection program that purchases easements. AFT had a direct hand in all of them, sometimes simply providing advice, sometimes driving the entire process, from crafting program details to helping secure funding.

How can we reduce agricultural land use?

Opportunities to reduce agricultural emissions include reducing fertilizer inputs, adjusting livestock feed to reduce emissions from digestive systems, and capturing methane emissions from manure. In addition, improved soil management can increase the sequestration of carbon in agricultural soils.

Why should we protect farmland?

Farmland provides food and cover for wildlife, helps control flooding, protects wetlands and watersheds and maintains air quality. In addition, new energy crops grown on farmland have the potential to replace fossil fuels.

Why is agricultural land important?

Agricultural land provides the largest share of food supplies and ensures an essential number of ecosystem services (e.g., providing food, fuel, fibre) (Pereira et al., 2018; Scown et al., 2019; Stephens et al., 2018).

What are farmland protection policies?

The Farmland Protection Policy Act discourages Federal activities that would convert farmland to nonagricultural purposes. Prime and important farmland includes all land that is defined as prime, unique, or farmlands of statewide or local importance.

How can we prevent farmland loss?

Protection Strategies Such strategies include agricultural zoning, agricultural buffers, right-to-farm ordinances, transfer or purchase of development rights programs, farmland mitigation requirements, and cluster or conservation development regulations.

What act was formed to protect farmland from being developed?

the Farmland Protection Policy Act (FPPA)Congress enacted the Farmland Protection Policy Act (FPPA) as a subtitle of the 1981 Farm Bill.

When and why was the farmland Protection Policy created?

The Farmland Protection Policy Act (FPPA), enacted in 1980, seeks to minimize the impact that Federal programs have on the unnecessary and irreversible conversion of farmland to nonagricultural uses.

How does farmland affect the community?

Farmland provides open space and valuable habitat for many wildlife species. However, intensive agriculture has potentially severe ecosystem consequences. For example, it has long been recognized that agricultural land use and practices can cause water pollution and the effect is influenced by government policies.

Why is it important to preserve farmland quizlet?

why is it important to preserve farmland? it provides an important oxygen source for urban areas; it moderates temperature of urban areas; it provides crops and fruits to support urban and rural pop.

What can farmland be used for?

Often farmland can be used for properties such as churches, public utilities, schools, hospitals, offices, feed shops, kennels, etc. However, you must be comfortable living next to farms that can raise livestock if you buy land which is agriculturally zoned to make a home.

Why is it important to preserve farmland?

Protecting agricultural land can also preserve farming as a pastoral ideal and protect the rural economy. Preserving farmland for amenity and natural environ ment reasons helps to protect the rural character of the countryside, environmentally sensitive areas, and visually significant resources. While strategies to preserve farmland may contribute to the protection of open space and natural resources, true farmland preservation strategies aim to protect land for agricultural use.

Why is the conversion of agricultural land to urban or nonagricultural uses important?

The conversion of agricultural land to urban or nonagricultural uses is a critical threat to the long term health of the agricultural industry . A secure land base is essential for agriculture and can only be assured if mechanisms are in place to protect agricultural land.

How does urbanization affect agriculture?

Urbanization has a variety of impacts on agricultural land use that combine to threaten the viability of the agricultural industry and the natural resource base. Urban ization influences agricultural land use most directly by converting agricultural land to urban uses: a permanent, irreversible consequence. Indirectly, urbanization influences agricultural land use through changes in the economic environment of urban fringe areas. As the demand for land in the urban fringe grows, the pressure on land prices to reflect urban values, rather than farm use values, increases. When farmers and rural landowners can receive more money by selling land for uses other than farming, they can no longer economically justify keeping the land for farm use. Alternatively, there may be abandoned farms, idled lands, or financial problems for those who continue to farm. As urban and suburban residents move into agricultural areas, conflicts inevitably arise which may threaten or restrict farm operations, such as nuisance complaints, vandalism, trespassing, and robbery. Urban encroachment onto farmland may also cause changes in farmers’ status in their communities, increase land speculation, taxation, and demand for public services, and result in an increase in nonfarm ownership of land. Farmers facing these effects may respond by selling the land, intensifying production, or reducing investments in the farm operation.

What is land use control?

Land use controls are primarily a post World War II response to the loss of agricultural lands to other uses. The UK system of state planning, for example, was built on the recognized need to preserve high quality agricultural lands. The land use control approach for preserving agricultural lands is obtained through control mechanisms, including land use zoning, land banking , and right to farm legislation. Land use zoning for agricultural land preservation is more widely adopted in North America, focused on agricultural land uses, and located in areas adjacent to larger urban centers where development pressures are the greatest. The most widely referred to examples include the States of Oregon, Hawaii, and Wisconsin in the United States and the Provinces of British Columbia, Quebec, and Newfoundland in Canada. Two types of zoning can be implemented: exclusive, whereby only agricultural activities are allowed within an agricultural zone, and, nonexclusive, which allows for limited nonagricultural development to take place. In theory, land use zoning controls are the most affordable because the appropriate level of government simply restricts particular lands from being developed to nonagricultural uses. This is similar to restricting residential development to areas zoned for that development in an urban center. However, in practice, such mechanisms can be difficult to maintain over time.

What is land stewardship?

Whereas land trusts and easements result in a restriction on development either in perpetuity or for a term limit, land stewardship is a voluntary program focused on how resources are managed. Stewardship programs are also not limited to agricultural land, but can include forested lands and areas of natural significance, such as wetlands. The more general nature of such ini tiatives is indicated in their efforts to create, foster, and enable landowners and resource users to responsibly manage and protect land and natural resources. Several examples can be cited, including: Canada’s landowner contact programs, the UK’s countryside stewardship scheme, and Australia’s land care program.

How many acres of land are less vulnerable to development?

AFT estimates that over 300 million acres of America’s agricultural land is less vulnerable to development because of taxation and planning efforts.

How many states have farmland protection programs?

Twenty-nine states have a farmland protection program that purchases easements. AFT had a direct hand in all of them, sometimes simply providing advice, sometimes driving the entire process, from crafting program details to helping secure funding. In a similar way, we helped create over 70 regional or local programs.

What is the Farmland Information Center?

We operate the Farmland Information Center that provides a web-based clearinghouse of data about protecting agricultural land , and a first-stop answer service for anyone with questions.#N#We lead the National Agricultural Land Network that supports private agricultural land trusts that hold easements, and state, regional, and local programs that fund farmland protection.#N#We protect agricultural land ourselves, acquiring and holding easements where that makes strategic sense.

What is AFT in agriculture?

But they are not being applied as aggressively as needed to prevent the alarming loss of this irreplaceable resource. AFT is the national leader in protecting farmland with agricultural conservation easements. Twenty-nine states have a farmland protection program that purchases easements.

What is agricultural protection zoning?

Agricultural protection zoning (APZ) is a form of zoning that designates areas where farming is the primary land use and discourages other land uses in those areas.

Why do landowners sell conservation easements?

Landowners voluntarily sell agricultural conservation easements to public entities to prevent it from being converted to other uses. After selling an easement, the landowner retains other rights of ownership, including the right to farm the land, prevent trespass, sell bequeath or otherwise transfer the land.

What is a mitigation ordinance?

Mitigation Ordinances. A handful of communities have used mitigation policies to require developers to offset the impacts of developing farmland. These ordinances require developers to purchase easements to permanently protect an equivalent or greater amount of farmland than they develop. Agricultural Land Mitigation Ordinance.

What is cluster zoning?

Cluster Zoning. Cluster zoning allows or requires houses to be grouped together at densities that exceed the usual requirements. Clustering houses on a small portion of a larger parcel can protect open space. This technique is also called cluster or conservation development.

What is conservation easement?

A conservation easement is a deed restriction landowners voluntarily place on their property to protect resources such as productive agricultural land, ground and surface water, wildlife habitat, historic sites or scenic views . They are used by landowners (“grantors”) to authorize a qualified conservation organization or public agency (“grantee”) to monitor and enforce the restrictions set forth in the agreement. Conservation easements are flexible documents tailored to each property and the needs of individual landowners. The landowner usually works with the prospective grantee to decide which activities should be limited to protect specific resources. Agricultural conservation easements (ACEs) are drafted to keep land available for agriculture. In general, ACEs limit subdivision, nonfarm development and other uses of the land that are incompatible with farming.

How does APZ help?

Also by limiting development potential, APZ can help keep land affordable to farmers and ranchers. Finally, APZ can help promote orderly growth by redirecting development to areas with adequate infrastructure to support it. Selected APZ Ordinances.

Why do estate plans need to be updated?

Davis Brown lawyer Tom Houser advised that families need to update their estate plans if the plans were written before 2013 because the legal rules and regulations affecting estate plans have changed since then.

What is LLC in farming?

The LLC separates ownership of the property from the managers of that property, Young added, which enables the parents to maintain their management of the farm while they are still alive.

Can an LLC give a farm to family members?

In case some of the members of the LLC want to put the farm up for sale, the LLC can grant the right of first refusal to family members in the LLC who don’t want to sell, Young stated. The value of the farm can be set by mutual agreement between the LLC members or, if they can’t agree on a value, it can be based on a neutral, third-party appraisal conducted by a professional appraiser or real estate agent.

Does a gift of farmland reduce estate tax?

Van Houten said that the gift law allows farmland owners to give a certain portion of the farm to each of their succeeding family members annually, thus lowering the monetary tax consequences of the federal estate tax when the parents die. In this age of very high estate tax exemptions, she noted, it is more important than ever to consider the income tax “basis,” or assumed cost of the property at the time of the lifetime gift. Although a gift can end up saving no estate tax, it can cause a capital gains tax when it is sold by the beneficiary, she concluded.

How much oil can a farm store?

Farms storing more than 25 gallons in underground or above-ground tanks. Farmers who generate an average of 25 gallons or less per month of used oil from vehicles or machinery used on the farm in a calendar year are exempt from used oil regulations.

How many gallons of oil do farmers need to store?

Farmers exceeding 25 gallons are required to store the used oil in tanks meeting underground or above ground technical requirements and use transporters with EPA authorization numbers for removal from the farm. Oil spill: Any farm that has a discharge of oil that may reach navigable waters or adjoining shoreline.

What is the duty of a chemical accident prevention facility?

The owners and operators of stationary sources (facility) that handle any extremely hazardous substance in any quantity have a general duty to identify hazards, design and operate a safe facility and to prevent and/or mitigate accidental releases.

Is pesticide disposal hazardous waste?

Proper disposal of pesticide hazard ous wastes. Waste pesticides disposed of on a farmer’s own property in compliance with specified waste management requirements, including the disposal instructions on the pesticide label, are not subject to the TSD facility standards.

What is crop production?

Crop Production (including nurseries, greenhouses, forestry) Mixing, loading and application of pesticides and any other farm labor that involves exposure to pesticides. Label restrictions typically require protective clothing and engineering controls (e.g., tractors with enclosed cabs and air recirculation systems).

What is pesticide use?

Pesticide Use and Water: Applications of (1) biological pesticides and (2) chemical pesticides that leave a residue, in which applications are made directly to waters of the United States, or where a portion of the pesticide will unavoidably be deposited to waters of the United States.

Is irrigation return flow solid waste?

Irrigation return flows are not solid wastes. Farmers can dispose of non-hazardous waste (e.g. agricultural wastes including manure, crop residues returned to the soil as fertilizers or soil conditioners; solid or dissolved materials in irrigation return flows) on their own property unless prohibited by other State or local laws.

Why Protect Agricultural Land

Urbanization of Rural and Agricultural Land

The Effects of Urbanization on Agricultural Land Use

Preservation For Food Security

• The conversion of agricultural land to urban or nonagricultural uses is a critical threat to the long term health of the agricultural industry. A secure land base is essential for agriculture and can only be assured if mechanisms are in place to protect agricultural land. Two opposing views exist over the need to preserve agricultural land for food…

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Preservation For Open Space, Environmental Sustainability, and The Rural Economy