Local agricultural producers now have federal, state, and local opportunities to be compensated for an agricultural/conservation easement that preserves their piece of the 100,000+ acres of farmland in Volusia County.
Volusia County, in partnership with Alachua Conservation Trust (ACT), and supported by ten other partners, has received a notice of award for a $25 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). This grant award is part of the Natural Resources Conservation Service’s (NRCS) Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP). ACT is already managing two other RCPP projects throughout the state and brings proven experience to the County’s efforts.
These RCPP funds provide agricultural landowners with an option to maintain their lands in family ownership in the face of development and rising land prices. Through the RCPP, landowners may place an agricultural easement over their lands and receive fair market value for the purchase of development rights of the property. The easements are written to protect the land’s natural resources while allowing the continuation of agricultural activities. Essentially, this is a funding source to keep agricultural lands in production in perpetuity.
The RCPP also provides funds for land management activities on private lands, which will include the elimination of invasive vegetation and conducting prescribed fire activities.
RCPP funds will be available in late 2024.
The RCPP is an additional tool to protect natural resources and preserve the important contribution the agricultural industry makes to our community.
On the state level, Florida’s Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson has requested an additional $300 million for the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (DACS) agricultural land preservation program – the Rural and Family Lands Protection Program (RFLPP) – in the state’s 2024 budget. Similar to RCPP, the RFLPP provides funding for farmers and ranchers to continue operating amid the pressures of Florida’s intense real estate market by purchasing agricultural easements on their property. The easements allow landowners to continue to use their property for agricultural purposes while preventing development.
The program also recognizes that working agricultural lands are essential to Florida’s economic future and hopes to protect those lands from the increasing threat of urban development while working with farmers and ranchers to ensure sustainable production practices and protecting natural resources.
Established in 2001 with the passage of the Rural and Family Lands Protection Act, the RFLPP has successfully acquired conservation easements on nearly 69,000 acres of working agricultural land to date.
There are currently six RFLPP applications in Volusia County in the current application cycle and the FDACS, as noted by their funding request to the Florida Legislature, intends to open another application cycle in 2024.
Finally, the local Volusia County, Volusia Forever Forests and Farmlands program provides a compliment to both the RCPP and RFLPP programs.
The Volusia Forever program, known as the Forests and Farmlands program, is similar to the RFLPP. The Forests and Farmlands program works with eligible landowners to purchase their property’s future development rights while simultaneously working with the landowner to keep their property in agricultural production. This is done using a conservation easement, the terms of which are negotiated with the landowner and written to ensure agricultural production is allowed to continue in perpetuity. As Volusia County works to implement the RCPP, we will combine resources from all agricultural protection programs to provide a diversity of options of county landowners and agricultural producers.
Applications for the Forests and Farmlands program are being accepted now.
Additional information about the Volusia Forever Forests and Farmlands program is available at www.volusia.org/forever or 386-934-7081 ext. 13460.