According to Jim Oldham, executive director of Equity Trust Inc., a nonprofit based in Turners Falls, Mass., that runs a loan fund and helps communities gain ownership interests in land, they often have not said what must be done with the land-only what cannot be done. The result: Estate owners who like the open space often buy the land but don't farm it.
"If we want to have food, we need working farms to produce it," he says, pointing out that the purchase of estates has forced farmers farther away from areas where they can sell their food, thus adding food miles. "If you want local food, we need working farms in all our communities."
Equity Trust helps communities and farmers to jointly craft easements that include affirmative farming requirements: farming on the land, a farmer growing food and making a business out of it, and preservation of the farm infrastructure, including housing for the farmer, etc. They may require the land to be farmed organically and most of the food grown for local consumption. And they clarify that the next farmer has the right to purchase the land at agricultural value.
If a farmer makes additions to the farmland like orchards, Oldham says, the value of the land goes up-but in terms of the land's ability to earn. "The increased value [that a farmer] puts into the land is measurable," he says, "and can be defined in such a way that when [she] sells that land, that benefit can accrue to [her]."
"Farmers expect they will get something for the 30 years of work [they put into] building the soil etc.," he says.
In a different approach that allows shared interest between a community and a farmer, Equity Trust has adopted an affordable housing model (the Community Land Trust) to farmland. This model allows farmers to earn returns on improvements they make on the land when they sell the property.
"It's [been] a brilliant way to provide affordable housing with strong community control, unlike the more government-sponsored projects or developer-led projects," Oldham says.
In this approach, the farmer purchases a share in the property, usually the farmhouse and other infrastructure, for its agricultural value, while simultaneously signing a long-term ground lease for the use of the land. The community, through the trust, owns the land. And the farmer runs the farm, can feel and act like an owner-and has the rights of an owner.
A few years ago, Equity Trust helped a farming couple sell the Caretaker Farm in Williamstown, Mass., which they had converted from a dairy farm to a vegetable CSA. It was a much-loved part of the community, and the new farmer could not afford the $1 million-plus market price.
The state purchased a conservation easement for $250,000. The town contributed $50,000 in community preservation, and local people contributed $200,000. Although the farm was sold for under $700,000, the sellers retained ownership of the second house on the property with a ground lease. The new farmers paid $177,000 for a share of the farm. They have a 99-year ground lease, and the public share of the land is owned by a local land trust.