California Land Protection

For more than 40 years, American Farmland Trust (AFT) has worked in partnership with interested landowners in California and across the country to develop innovative agricultural easement projects.

One regional area of focus in California is the San Joaquin Valley farmland protection.

AFT is currently seeking agricultural landowners in the San Joaquin Valley who are interested in permanently protecting their productive farmland from development.

Agricultural easements are a well-established tool that enables landowners to protect their property in perpetuity. They are flexible instruments designed to align with the landowner’s individual conservation goals. Easements limit non-agricultural development on valuable farmland while allowing the continued productive agricultural use of the land.               

       Across the Nation

As an early leader in the agricultural land protection movement, AFT began accepting easements when few land trusts existed. In many of the regions where we’ve worked across the nation, AFT has helped create regional, state, and local land trusts. We have increasingly passed along this critical work to these qualified local entities. AFT has permanently protected over 200 properties in 25 states (totaling over 73,000 acres) using agricultural conservation easements.