C. Easements and Other Conservation Tools
In addition to federal conservation easement programs for farm owners, there are a number of other local, state, and national programs that compensate
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farm owners for implementing agricultural easements on their land.
While these programs generally rely on public funds, either directly or through tax expenditures, they are often designed and administered by nonprofits. As such, the private sector can play an important role in adapting and expanding agricultural easement programs to support climate-friendly practices. Many organizations offering agricultural easements already recognize the environmental benefits of well-managed agricultural land, which can be significant (as discussed in Chapter V.B.5). Nonetheless, few land conservation organizations include climate change mitigation as one of their stated goals, even though it would allow them to more effectively manage land for sequestration.Agricultural easements can be drafted to give both farmers and land conservation agencies greater flexibility to monitor and reduce net emissions. Conservation easements generally articulate their purposes, giving courts, conservation organizations, and landowners guidance on how to administer the easement under evolving conditions. Land conservation agencies and agricultural land trusts should incorporate climate change mitigation into easement purposes, ensuring that easement conditions encourage climate-friendly practices and that farmers’ efforts to mitigate climate change do not conflict with their easements.10 Indeed, ideally, easements would require implementation of basic climate-friendly practices, such as riparian buffers or cover crops, or at least discount the value of any agricultural easement that does not ensure the implementation of such practices.
Additionally, easements should be written to allow for ecological monitoring, scientific research, and publicly accessible data sources,11 all of which are critical for improving land management.12 Conservation organizations and agricultural land trusts should also use other legal tools outside of easements.
By leasing land instead of offering permanent easements, for example, these organizations can carefully select farmers to manage their land, allowing them to develop long-term cooperative relationships with farmers dedicated to climate-friendly practices.13Finally, as noted in Chapter IV, farmland offers great potential for the siting of renewable energy such as wind turbines and solar panels. Since onfarm energy and electricity contribute about 1% of total U.S. greenhouse gas
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emissions, accelerating on-farm renewable energy and energy efficiency could be important. If larger-scale renewable energy development is directed to marginal farmland (where there is often the least opportunity for enhanced soil carbon sequestration)—and away from the most productive farmland— there can be a significant climate benefit. Since this is a new field, academics and not-for-profit organizations can help develop model leases, educate both farmers and energy developers about best practices, and advocate for supportive policies.14
More on the topic C. Easements and Other Conservation Tools:
- 5. Conservation Easements
- Predial servitudes or land easements
- 4. Conservation Payments
- D. Carbon Measurement Tools
- Legal Entities as Governance Tools
- 6. Conservation Compliance Requirements
- B. Public Subsidy and Conservation Programs
- The loss of biological diversity: wide collection and international ex situ conservation programmes as a response
- The federal government supports farms through five main avenues: crop insurance, commodity programs, conservation payments, credit, and trade.
- The twentieth century was marked by worldwide genetic resource erosion, in reaction to which the international community (in particular countries from the North) developed large ex situ conservation policies.
- Methane and nitrous oxide are the two main greenhouse gases emitted by agricultural sources. EPA has several direct regulatory tools available to reduce emissions of these greenhouse gases, including recognizing the harm or “endangerment” caused by these pollutants and promulgating regulatory programs to require or support their reduction.
- 6. Technical Assistance
- Conclusion
- 6 3 Servitudes