Agricultural Conservation Easements Research Articles

Unpacking conservation easements' assessed land use designations and their implications for realizing biodiversity protection

AbstractNative ecosystem and biodiversity loss from land use conversion into human‐modified landscapes are evident in the United States and globally. In addition to public land conservation, there is an increase in private land conservation through conservation easements (CEs) across exurban landscapes. Not every CE was established strictly for biodiversity protection and permitted land uses can increase human modification. No research of which we are aware has examined the actual tax assessor's land use designations (LUDs) through time. We constructed granular CE datasets (GCED) of CEs and their parcels' tax assessment LUDs for 1997–2008/2009, based on original data from 12 counties in six US states. Using the GCED, we examined patterns in the LUDs, with implications for land uses that could impact CE biological outcomes. We show that LUDs on exurban private conservation lands were predominately residential and agricultural, with increased residential over time. Critically, the LUDs lack a biological conservation exempt designation/category. There is no consistent trend in association between the primary CE reason and its parcel's LUD, suggesting that they coincide in some circumstances but in others, the CE may be a response to contravene the LUD. The majority of the first CE reasons are focused on open space preservation, except in some counties where agricultural land uses and agricultural CEs are associated. The economically and human‐focused LUD is one of many social factors that should be considered in a classification system for private land conservation and CEs more specifically. These results prompt the land conservation, conservation biology, and environmental planning communities to explore assessed land uses' impact on biodiversity conservation objectives.

Estimating the parcel-level impacts of agricultural conservation easements on farmland loss using satellite data in New England

The rapid loss of farmland to development has long been a concern of policymakers and conservation non-profits globally. In the United States, agricultural conservation easements are a widespread policy tool used to protect farmland from conversion to development in perpetuity. However, the extent to which these easements reduce farmland loss to development within their boundaries is rarely studied at the spatial scale at which easement adoption decisions are made: the individual parcel. Our case study from six New England states uses a rich dataset of 1.97 million parcels, novel estimates of annual parcel-level land cover change from 1988 to 2016, and a quasi-experimental research design to estimate the extent to which 3959 farmland easements avoided conversion of cropland to development. We examine and discuss the suitability of remote sensing data and quasi-experimental matching methods for impact assessments in this geographic and political context. Our empirical results suggest that agricultural conservation easements have reduced farmland loss to development. The magnitude of avoided farmland loss is small (0.0067% ± 0.0019% of parcel area per annum), largely because of a low background rate of farmland loss across New England (0.0027% of total area per annum). Our findings suggest that the spatial allocation of farmland easements has historically not prioritized the highest-threat locations where impacts would be most noticeable, as allocation is driven by a diverse range of goals in addition to avoiding farmland loss.

Landowner Satisfaction with Conservation Programs in the Southern United States

Landowner satisfaction with conservation programs affects their participation decisions and subsequently effectiveness of these programs in improving environmental quality. This study determined the influence of landownership goals, environmental concerns, frequency of contacts with federal agencies, and socioeconomic factors on landowner satisfaction with available conservation programs in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley and East Gulf Coastal Plain sub-geographies of the Gulf Coastal Plains and Ozarks Landscape Conservation Cooperative. A generalized ordered logit model for each conservation program was constructed to analyze factors influencing landowner satisfaction levels with these programs. Of the 14 federal conservation programs assessed, the top programs, based on a satisfaction level, included Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), Conservation Technical Assistance (CTA), Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP), and Agricultural Conservation Easement Program (ACEP). The size of agricultural land owned, landownership goals including profit-making and personal recreation, concerns about wildlife habitat losses, and frequent contacts with federal agencies were positively related to landowner satisfaction levels. Better strategies addressing landowner’s environmental concerns, communicating technical knowledge, clarifying contract terms, and supporting financial resource leveraging will help reach the enrolled and non-enrolled landowners to increase their participation in conservation efforts.

The heterogeneous effects of agricultural conservation easements on the loss of farmland to development in New England

Farmland near cities can provide diverse non-market benefits, such as recreational open space, landscape appeal, local food production, ecological habitat, and water regulation, which risk being underprovided by markets in the absence of intervention. The rapid loss of farmland to development has long been a concern of conservation non-profits and policymakers in the U.S. and globally, which has recently gained traction due to President Biden's decision to include farmlands in the federal goal to protect 30% of U.S. land by 2030. Agricultural conservation easements are a widespread policy tool to protect farmland from conversion to development in the long term. However, the extent to which these easements causally reduce farmland loss to development within their boundaries is rarely studied at the spatial scale at which easement adoption decisions are made: the individual parcel. Here we estimate the impacts of agricultural conservation easements on farmland loss at the parcel level at a large spatial scale and over a long time horizon. Our case study from six New England states uses a rich dataset of 1.97 million parcels, novel estimates of annual parcel-level land cover change from 1988 to 2016, and quasi-experimental counterfactual estimation strategies to estimate the extent to which 3,959 farmland easements causally avoided conversion of cropland to development. Our results suggest that agricultural conservation easements have significantly reduced farmland loss to development. However, the overall magnitude of avoided rates of farmland loss on easements is very small (0.0067% ± 0.0019% of parcel area per annum), largely because of a low background rate of farmland loss across New England (0.0027% of total area per annum). A spatial allocation of agricultural easements towards more rapidly urbanizing counties (with farmland loss rates of up to 0.0281% of county area per annum) would increase the causal impacts of this instrument. Overall, our findings suggest that the spatial allocation of farmland easements has historically not prioritized the highest-threat locations where impacts would be most noticeable, indicating that allocation is driven by a variety of goals in addition to avoiding farmland loss.

Modeling the Supporting Ecosystem Services of Depressional Wetlands in Agricultural Landscapes

We explored how a geographic information system modeling approach could be used to quantify supporting ecosystem services related to the type, abundance, and distribution of landscape components. Specifically, we use the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs model to quantify habitats that support amphibians and birds, floral resources that support pollinators, native-plant communities that support regional biodiversity, and above- and below-ground carbon stores in the Des Moines Lobe ecoregion of the U.S. We quantified services under two scenarios, one that represented the 2012 Des Moines Lobe landscape, and one that simulated the conversion to crop production of wetlands and surrounding uplands conserved under the USDA Agricultural Conservation Easement Program (ACEP). While ACEP easements only covered 0.35% of the ecoregion, preserved wetlands and grasslands provided for 19,020 ha of amphibian habitat, 21,462 ha of grassland-bird habitat, 18,798 ha of high-quality native wetland plants, and 27,882 ha of floral resources for pollinators. Additionally, ACEP protected lands stored 257,722 t of carbon that, if released, would result in costs in excess of 45-million USD. An integrated approach using results from a GIS-based model in combination with process-based model quantifications will facilitate more informed decisions related to ecosystem service tradeoffs.

A comparison of wetland characteristics between Agricultural Conservation Easement Program and public lands wetlands in West Virginia, USA.

In West Virginia, USA, there are 24 conservation easement program wetlands enrolled in the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program (ACEP). These wetlands are located on private agricultural land and are passively managed. Due to their location within fragmented agricultural areas, wetlands enrolled in ACEP in West Virginia have the potential to add wetland ecosystem services in areas that are lacking these features. We evaluated ACEP wetlands compared to reference wetlands on public land in West Virginia by using surrounding land cover, vegetative cover, and wetland features and stressors such as the presence or absence of erosion, upland inclusion, algal mats, and evidence of impacts from the surrounding landscape as surrogate measurements of wetland function on 13 ACEP wetlands and 10 reference wetlands. ACEP wetlands had higher percentages of tree coverage and a higher proportion of agricultural land in the areas immediately surrounding the wetland. Reference wetlands had higher percent coverage of emergent vegetation and had a higher proportion of forest in the immediate landscape. Our findings suggest that ACEP wetlands provide valuable early successional and forested wetland cover in a state that is largely forested. Because of this, it is important to maintain and even expand ACEP in West Virginia to continue providing a valuable source of early successional wetland habitat.

Farmland Owners’ Satisfaction with Agricultural Conservation Easements

Despite substantial investments in purchase of agricultural conservation easement (PACE) programs to preserve farmland, little attention has been placed on evaluating landowner perspectives of PACE post-preservation. Understanding landowner experiences and satisfaction with operation of farms subject to PACE deeds of easement can inform future farmland preservation policy and procedures. The objective of this study is to empirically examine the extent and basis of landowner satisfaction with PACE program participation through statistical modeling of data from a phone survey of 507 preserved farmland owners in three Northeastern states (Delaware, Maryland, and New Jersey). Ordinal logistic regression models are developed to explain factors affecting landowners’ satisfaction of PACE participation. Results show generally high levels of owner satisfaction with PACE programs in the region. “Second-generation” landowners (i.e., those who purchase or inherit preserved farms) and owners who have had a business activity restricted by easement terms are less likely to be satisfied with the program. Implications for policy formation and program administration are discussed.

Influence of the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program wetland practices on winter occupancy of Passerellidae sparrows and avian species richness.

Wetlands enrolled in the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program (ACEP) are established as a means of restoring wetland ecosystems and wildlife habitat on private, agricultural land. In West Virginia, USA, ACEP wetlands have never been evaluated to determine how they function as wildlife habitat in comparison to other available wetland habitat in the state. We measured the wintering occupancy of Passerellidae species and apparent avian species richness on ACEP wetlands and a set of reference wetlands located on public land in West Virginia to evaluate if ACEP wetlands are being used similarly by avian species to other available wetland habitat in the state. Apparent avian species richness and the occupancy probability of four Passerellidae species—song sparrows (Melospiza melodia), dark-eyed juncos (Junco hyemalis), swamp sparrows (Melospiza georgiana), and white-throated sparrows (Zonotrichia albicollis)—did not differ between ACEP and reference sites. In addition to other vegetative and habitat associations for each species, dark-eyed junco occupancy was negatively correlated with wetland size while swamp sparrow occupancy and apparent avian species richness were positively associated with wetland size. These results indicate that ACEP wetlands are providing winter avian habitat as well as another source of wetland habitat in the state. Maintaining and expanding ACEP wetlands in West Virginia would continue to provide wetland systems in areas that are otherwise lacking these habitats.

Defining the Role of Agriculture in Agricultural Conservation Easements

Farmland preservation has become an important pursuit for those seeking to protect the working landscape. One of the most common approaches for securing this protection is through the targeted use of agricultural conservation easements, typically perpetual land use agreements designed to limit incompatible activities in order to preserve future agricultural viability. Since the 1990s, agricultural conservation easements have protected millions of acres of land, and many of these donations have relied on the federal tax incentives provided by section 170(h) of the Internal Revenue Code to facilitate these transactions. Perhaps surprisingly given this high rate of utilization, securing farmland for future productive use is not an express objective of the Internal Revenue Code, which requires these donations to qualify on other grounds. This Article explores the impacts of this disconnect and examines options for how farmland preservation objectives could be better integrated into the current tax-incentivized conservation easement framework.

Defining the Role of Conservation in Agricultural Conservation Easements

Farmland preservation has become an important pursuit for those seeking to protect the working landscape against conversion to non-agricultural use. One of the most common approaches for securing this protection is through the targeted use of agricultural conservation easements, typically perpetual land use agreements designed to limit incompatible activities in order to preserve future agricultural viability. There is, however, a growing tension within these perpetual agreements, particularly between the need to allow farmers substantial flexibility to adjust to future business conditions and the desire to protect significant non-economic values, including the conservation and environmental benefits that these lands also provide. It is the purpose of this Article to evaluate the role of conservation efforts within this overall framework and to evaluate the potential options for securing greater protection of these important rural amenities. To this end, Part II of this Article explores the various motivations that fuel farmland preservation nationwide. Part III discusses the evolution of farm policy towards its current degree of multifunctionality and the corresponding development and use of agricultural conservation easements as the preferred protective mechanism. Part IV addresses the growing tension within these agreements as agricultural practice continues to evolve. Last, Part V investigates the various approaches that can be used to protect the environmental attributes of protected agricultural lands. Ultimately, agricultural conservation easements will always require a balance between allowing flexibility for accommodating future needs and protecting rural amenities, but these agreements should actually result in a balance and ensure that the increasingly important conservation and environmental benefits associated with the working landscape are being adequately protected.

ニューヨーク市水源林保全における農業保全地役権の特徴と運用状況

ニューヨーク市水源林保全における農業保全地役権の特徴と運用状況

The impact of agricultural conservation easement on nearby house prices: Incorporating spatial autocorrelation and spatial heterogeneity

The impact of farmland under agricultural conservation easement (ACE) contract on the values of nearby residential properties is investigated using housing sales data in two Pennsylvania counties. ACE-protected farmland had a positive impact on nearby property values in one study county but a negative impact in the other. The paper also looks at the impact of forest land use, and discovers that preserved forest land had a positive impact on the nearby property values in both counties. House prices showed strong spatial correlation in both counties, and a spatial error components (SEC) model fit the data better than the OLS model, a spatial-lag model (SLM), or a spatial autoregressive error model (SEM). Geographically weighted regression (GWR) showed that the impact of ACE-protected farmland on nearby property values varied within one of the two study counties, with positive impacts in some parts of the county and negative impacts in other parts. The impact of forest cover on property values also varied, with positive impacts within both counties. A new hybrid GWR-SEC model is introduced that incorporates both spatial correlation in prices and spatial heterogeneity in the model parameters. Statistical goodness of fit measures showed that the GWR-SEC model fit better than the GWR model or a hybrid GWR-SEM model.

A Study on the Purchase of Agricultural Conservation Easements in the U.S.

A Study on the Purchase of Agricultural Conservation Easements in the U.S.

The Future of Preserved Farmland: Ownership Succession in Three Mid-Atlantic States

This paper examines the uses and succession of farmland preserved under state-sponsored purchase of agricultural conservation easements (PACE) programs in Delaware, Maryland, and New Jersey. Preservation programs in these states have been operating long enough to observe and assess actual transfers of preserved farmland ownership over time. The analysis is based on a survey of 507 owners of preserved agricultural land. Nearly one-third of surveyed preserved-farmland owners had purchased or inherited properties under already existing conservation easements. These individuals (second-generation owners) are contrasted from first-generation owners, people who sold or donated their land's development rights. Descriptive and regression analysis is used to compare these two generations of owners on aspects of their preserved land's management that administrators and other stakeholders of farmland preservation programs have regarded as important. Specifically examined is (1) the percentage of the protected land that is actively farmed, rather than being idle or used solely for residential enjoyment; (2) the proportion of owners of preserved land who were young farmers when they first acquired preserved farmland; and (3) the percentage of owners who have succession plans to transfer land to a farmer expected to use the preserved land for agricultural production. Results provide optimism that deed-restricted farmland is not being diverted from agricultural use through succession in ownership.

Valuing Farmland Protection: Do Empirical Results and Policy Guidance Depend on the Econometric Fine Print?

AbstractEconomists have generated an abundance of willingness to pay estimates to help inform U.S. farmland protection policies. Stated preference approaches are often used for such estimations, with an increasing reliance placed on discrete choice models such as mixed logit, in which results can be sensitive to minor specification changes. This paper evaluates how and to what extent this sensitivity is policy relevant. Drawing from a case study of agricultural conservation easements in Georgia, we characterize the sensitivity of choice experiment welfare estimates to common variations in mixed logit specification. Results suggest that practitioners should provide greater attention to the potential implications of often unnoticed modeling choices in discrete choice welfare estimation.

Increasing the public benefits of agricultural conservation easements: an illustration with the Central Valley Farmland Trust in the San Joaquin Valley

Agricultural conservation easements (ACEs) involve the significant expenditure of public funds through either tax benefits and/or direct public expenditures. The selection of agricultural parcels for conservation should, therefore, maximise net public benefits to the extent possible within financial constraints and the need for agricultural viability to maintain working landscapes. Some programmes select agricultural parcels for conservation easements based only on agricultural viability and/or land cost, however, without explicit consideration of the many other public benefits often associated with ACEs. This paper illustrates application of a method for increasing the public benefits of agricultural conservation easements through a case study in the northern San Joaquin Valley of California. The method is a strategic planning process that incorporates both a GIS-based quantitative assessment and a more qualitative assessment. Such an approach is a supplement to – rather than a substitute for – the more science-based Landscape Evaluation and Site Evaluation (LESA) approach developed by the US Soil Conservation Service (SCS) and cost-minimisation approaches that emphasise economic considerations. However, we show that public land use planning and regulatory policies are essential for agricultural conservation. Acquisition strategies in isolation will not be successful without complementary public regulatory policies.

The value of the option to preserve farm real estate

Agricultural conservation easements consist of deed restrictions that landowners voluntarily place on their farm real estate for any number of reasons including the permanent restriction of development. Purchase of Agricultural Conservation Easement (PACE) programs exist in many States and are used to ensure farm real estate is available for future agricultural use as well as a policy mechanism to control development. Much like the landowner’s development option, preservation is a real option exercised at the discretion of the landowner. An analytic contingent claims model is presented to value the landowner’s preservation option. An empirical analysis of the model indicates that the option to delay preservation can have significant value.

Informing Preservation of Multifunctional Agriculture when Primary Research Is Unavailable: An Application of Meta‐Analysis

Motivations for agricultural policy are increas ingly driven by nonproduction or multifunc tional services. As early as 1977, Gardner argued that the most compelling case for agricultural preservation is the provision of public-good amenities. Economists have since devoted considerable effort to research that es timates market and nonmarket values of mul tifunctional outputs (Bergstrom and Ready 2009). Given recent progress in this area, however, it is surprising how little impact related research has made on the policy pro cess. Consider selection approaches used in common purchase of agricultural conservation easement (PACE) programs. Such approaches (e.g., Land Evaluation and Site Assessment) use criteria that focus largely on parcel at tributes associated with profitable production where no market failure exists (e.g., soil qual ity, see Nickerson and Hellerstein 2003), with less weight given to multifunctional amenities or public preferences. Among the reasons for limited use of pub lic preference information to guide policy is the paucity of transferable tools to predict the influence of multifunctional services on pub lic welfare. Evidence from the valuation liter

Strategic targeting of agricultural conservation easements as a growth management tool

Public and private programs have preserved an estimated 730,000 ha of agricultural land in the United States by acquiring agricultural conservation easements (ACEs) that retire a property's development rights. ACEs could be a potent tool for smart growth if strategically targeted. This paper attempts to quantify measures of strategic targeting of ACEs as guidance for planners. Evaluating the placement of 157 ACEs in the San Francisco Bay Area of California produced mixed results. Preservation and development of agricultural land were both consistent with general plans. In contrast, we found little evidence of ACEs being used on a regional scale either to reinforce urban growth boundaries or to coalesce with other open space to form large contiguous blocks of protected areas. We used the TOPSIS method (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) to identify the most strategic agricultural lands, which are quite different from where easements have been established through 2002. We encourage planners to consider strategic targeting of ACEs as a politically acceptable mechanism to complement traditional planning tools to minimize low density sprawl.

Easement Exchanges for Agricultural Conservation: A Case Study Under the Williamson Act in California

Abstract Rapid population growth has made farmland conservation a concern throughout the world, leading state and local decision-makers to conserve agricultural land through a variety of policy tools. Among the most prominent strategies in recent years has been the direct purchase of development rights or the acquisition of agricultural conservation easements through purchase, donation, or exchange. However, the effectiveness of conservation easements has been questioned recently by scholars while public accountability for their adoption has been relatively thin. This article evaluates implementation of California’s Williamson Act contract cancellation and easement exchange program (WAEE) as a mitigation measure against the loss of agricultural land, offering important insights into the strengths and weaknesses of exchanges as a policy tool. We recommend a significant modification to the existing structure of the program that should also be considered by other jurisdictions exploring easement exchanges as a means of conserving agricultural land. Cancellation fees from non-exchanges should be transferred directly to the state budget for the acquisition of conservation easements in the region in which contracts are being cancelled, thereby creating an incentive for the state conservation agency to conduct a more critical evaluation of the proposed easement exchange in comparison to direct acquisition of other conservation easements.