AFT Testifies on Agricultural Conservation Easements to House Agriculture Subcommittee on Conservation, Research, and Biotechnology

Today, AFT’s Vice President of Policy, Tim Fink, praised the House Agriculture Committee’s proposed transfer of the Inflation Reduction Act’s remaining unobligated funds into the Conservation Title of the Farm Bill, calling it AFT’s “top Farm Bill priority” that would “enable even more farmers and ranchers to protect their land and implement the conservation practices needed to build more profitable, resilient, and sustainable operations for decades to come.”  

Fink’s comments came in testimony today in front of the Conservation, Research, and Biotechnology Subcommittee of the House Agriculture Committee (recording available here). The hearing—titled Supporting Farmers, Strengthening Conservation, Sustaining Working Lands—was dedicated to exploring the critical role of voluntary conservation programs which help farmers, ranchers, and landowners better steward their agricultural land.  

While AFT has a broad Farm Bill agenda to advance many priorities including conservation practice adoption, land access, business technical assistance, and Smart Solar, Fink’s testimony centered on the importance of the Agricultural Land Easements subprogram of the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program (ACEP-ALE). ACEP-ALE is the only federal program dedicated to protecting the nation’s irreplaceable working lands from development, and its work has never been more important. As Fink noted, “according to AFT’s Farms Under Threat: The State of the States report, in just the first 15 years of this century—a period with a slowdown in housing starts due to a recession—11 million acres of productive farm ground were converted.” 

Agricultural conservation easements—such as those funded through ACEP-ALE—are a key tool in retaining working lands. They offer landowners a vital alternative to development as a way of extracting equity from their land, and provide other benefits, including:  

• Improved farm and ranch viability. Easement proceeds are often used by farmers and ranchers to improve, diversify, or expand their operations. 

• Support for the transfer of agricultural land. The sale of an easement can help finance retirement and the farm or ranch’s transfer to the next generation. For aspiring farmers, protected land is more affordable. In fact, it is often the only land they can afford. 

• Additional conservation practice adoption. A recent survey found that the majority of landowners with easements have NRCS conservation plans and over 75% have adopted at least three conservation practices. Farmers are more likely to make long-term investments when they know they are going to be in business long enough for those investments to bear fruit. 

• Economic benefits for rural communities and economies. A 2022 Montana study found that between 2014 and 2021, every ACEP dollar spent yielded nearly twice that in economic activity. These investments also supported over 1,000 local jobs and over $40 million in labor income. 

Fink thanked the House Agriculture Committee for championing important easement program reforms in the Farm, Food and National Security Act of 2024. These include: 

• Increasing ACEP’s general federal match and offering a lower match option, which will enable more participation in ACEP-ALE in parts of the country where there are no or limited sources of matching funds.  

• Streamlining ACEP by expanding entity certification and empowering certified entities to play a larger role in easement acquisitions and stewardship. 

• Eliminating ACEP-ALE’s Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) eligibility requirement.  

Recognizing the importance of the transfer of Inflation Reduction Act funding into the Farm Bill’s Conservation Title, Fink indicated that this change would increase ACEP’s Farm Bill baseline by $250 million annually, helping to address unmet program demand.   

During the hearing, Fink also answered questions related to other AFT Farm Bill priorities including the Farmer-to-Farmer Education Act, the value of Conservation Technical Assistance (CTA) and increasing the connections between crop insurance and conservation actions.