By Marc Hudson
OAT’s Rangeland Program Director, Marc Hudson, attended the ALE Summit in Jacksonville, Florida to learn and improve on this important farmland protection tool.
OAT’s ability to effectively protect agricultural land is reliant on a limited number of state and federal programs which will pay producers to preserve their farm or ranch. One of the most successful and richly funded has been the Natural Resource Conservation Service’s (NRCS) Agricultural Conservation Easement Program (ACEP) Agricultural Land Easements (ALE)-or just the ALE Program for short. The program, which was initiated with the 2014 Farm Bill, has broad bipartisan support in Congress and has successfully funded hundreds of millions in conservation easements since its initiation. For OAT to accomplish our mission, this program is an essential tool in our toolkit.
That said, demand for agricultural preservation has outstripped the funding available. With the upcoming 2023 Farm Bill legislation, OAT, other land trusts and the NRCS wanted to meet to improve on the existing program and discuss potential changes under future legislation. More than 25 land trusts, staff from the NRCS andconference organizers from the Land Trust Alliance gathered on the banks of the St. Johns River in Jacksonville, Florida to discuss these issues. The topics, to people not focused on implementing agricultural land easements, were admittedly mundane (from discussing online forms to federal internal controls reviews), but represented one of the greatest troubleshooting collaboratives for a federal program out there at this time. It is unfortunately rare for nationwide program administrators to sit down with the on-the-ground implementers - and it's that level of care from NRCS which makes ALE a great program.
For myself, it was a great way to learn about how NRCS sees the ALE Program and learn what is and isn’t working for other land trusts across the country in preserving agricultural land. It’s always inspiring to hear how land trusts like OAT are working to save agricultural communities across the country. NRCS Oregon recently received a historically high award of ALE Program funds, which will fund a number of OAT projects as well as projects for partner land trusts. There are many wonderful farm and ranch owners in Oregon, and using the information gleaned from the summit and other sources, we hope to build the best program in the country for the implementation of the ALE program.