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Agriculture is one of America's leading industries. Until now, there has been not been a single volume that covers the law of agricultural land preservation. This book covers the legal principles, federal and state requirements, and the issues that have arisen in implementing public and private agricultural preservation programs, federal tax and estate laws, court cases, and landowner financial issues and options that affect agricultural land preservation efforts.Agricultural land preservation can help farmers and ranchers by providing needed capital to strengthen the profitability of the agricultural operation, facilitate the transfer of the farm or ranch to the next generation, and offer an alternative to selling land for development. This book provides practical, current guidance for attorneys advising landowning clients who wish to explore agricultural land preservation options, in addition to those who advise private, nonprofit land trusts or government agencies that preserve farmland.
Agriculture is one of America's leading industries, generating $835 billion in economic activity in 2014--about 5 percent of the nation's gross domestic product--and employing more than 9 percent of the nation's workforce. Yet until now, there's been no single volume on the law of agricultural land preservation. This book covers the legal principles, federal and state legal requirements, and legal issues that have arisen in the implementation of public and private agricultural preservation programs, federal tax and estate laws, court cases, and landowner financial issues and options that affect agricultural land preservation efforts.Agricultural land preservation can help farmers and ranchers by providing needed capital to strengthen the profitability of the agricultural operation, facilitate the transfer of the farm or ranch to the next generation, and offer an alternative to selling land for development. This book provides practical, current guidance for attorneys advising landowning clients who wish to explore agricultural land preservation options, in addition to those who advise private, nonprofit land trusts or government agencies that preserve farmland.
As the world population grows, so does the demand for food, putting unprecedented pressure on agricultural lands. In many desert dryland regions, however, intensive cultivation is causing their productivity to decline precipitously. "Rewilding" the least productive of these landscapes offers a sensible way to reverse the damage, recover natural diversity, and ensure long-term sustainability of remaining farms and the communities they support. This accessibly written, groundbreaking contributed volume is the first to examine in detail what it would take to retire eligible farmland and restore functioning natural ecosystems. The lessons in Rewilding Agricultural Landscapes will be useful to conservation leaders, policymakers, groundwater agencies, and water managers looking for inspiration and practical advice for solving the complicated issues of agricultural sustainability and water management.
As land is lost to urban sprawl and other non-farm activity, our ability to produce food is diminished and options for future food production are limited. Farmland preservation speaks to the need to preserve the agricultural land base for future generations. The need for protection is driven by uncertainty caused by climate change, population growth, food security, energy availability, and other local and global factors. This uncertainty means that there is an ever-growing responsibility to ensure that the actions of today do not compromise the needs of future generations. This second edition of Farmland Preservation provides a range of views and case studies from across Canada, the United States, and beyond. Its fourteen essays are intended to help the reader understand the importance of the issue and the potential for applying new approaches to agricultural protection, policy tools, and initiatives.
To feed its 1.2 billion people, China may soon have to import so much grain that this action could trigger unprecedented rises in world food prices. In Who Will Feed China: Wake-up Call for a Small Planet, Lester Brown shows that even as water becomes more scarce in a land where 80 percent of the grain crop is irrigated, as per-acre yield gains are erased by the loss of cropland to industrialization, and as food production stagnates, China still increases its population by the equivalent of a new Beijing each year. When Japan, a nation of just 125 million, began to import food, world grain markets rejoiced. But when China, a market ten times bigger, starts importing, there may not be enough grain in the world to meet that need - and food prices will rise steeply for everyone. Analysts foresaw that the recent four-year doubling of income for China's 1.2 billion consumers would increase food demand, especially for meat, eggs, and beer. But these analysts assumed that food production would rise to meet those demands. Brown shows that cropland losses are heavy in countries that are densely populated before industrialization, and that these countries quickly become net grain importers. We can see that process now in newspaper accounts from China as the government struggles with this problem.
The Farm as Natural Habitat is a vital new contribution to the debate about agriculture and its impacts on the land. Arising from the conviction that the agricultural landscape as a whole could be restored to a healthy diversity, the book challenges the notion that the dominant agricultural landscape -- bereft of its original vegetation and wildlife and despoiled by chemical runoff -- is inevitable if we are to feed ourselves. Contributors bring together insights and practices from the fields of conservation biology, sustainable agriculture, and environmental restoration to link agriculture and biodiversity, farming and nature, in celebrating a unique alternative to conventional agriculture.Rejecting the idea that "ecological sacrifice zones" are a necessary part of feeding a hungry world, the book offers compelling examples of an alternative agriculture that can produce not only healthful food, but fully functioning ecosystems and abundant populations of native species. Contributors include Collin Bode, George Boody, Brian DeVore, Arthur (Tex) Hawkins, Buddy Huffaker, Rhonda Janke, Richard Jefferson, Nick Jordan, Cheryl Miller, Heather Robertson, Carol Shennan, Judith Soule, Beth Waterhouse, and others.The Farm as Natural Habitat is both hopeful and visionary, grounded in real examples, and guided by a commitment to healthy land and thriving communities. It is the first book to offer a viable approach to addressing the challenges of protecting and restoring biodiversity on private agricultural land and is essential reading for anyone concerned with issues of land or biodiversity conservation, farming and agriculture, ecological restoration, or the health of rural communities and landscapes.
This synopsis covers evidence for the effects of conservation interventions for native farmland wildlife. It is restricted to evidence captured on the website www.conservationevidence.com. It includes papers published in the journal Conservation Evidence, evidence summarized on our database and systematic reviews collated by the Collaboration for Environmental Evidence. It is the thrid volume in the series Synopses of Conservation Evidence. Evidence was collected from all European countries west of Russia, but not those south of France, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary and Romania. A list of interventions to conserve wildlife on farmland was developed collaboratively by a team of thirteen experts. A number of interventions that are not currently agri-environment options were added during this process, such as ‘Provide nest boxes for bees (solitary or bumblebees)’ and ‘Implement food labelling schemes relating to biodiversity-friendly farming’. Interventions relating to the creation or management of habitats not considered commercial farmland (such as lowland heath, salt marsh and farm woodland) were removed. The list of interventions was organized into categories based on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) classifications of direct threats and conservation actions. Interventions that fall under the threat category ‘Agriculture’ are grouped by farming system, with separate sections for interventions that apply to arable or livestock farms, or across all farming types.
Farmland tenure shapes many farm decisions, including those related to production, conservation, and succession planning. The relatively advanced age of many farmers raises questions abut land ownership, especially how land will be transferred to the next generation of agricultural landowners and operators. This study provides a descriptive baseline analysis of land ownership and then focuses on more detailed aspects of land tenure, including non-operator landlords, rental agreements, the acquisition and transfer of land, and how decisionmaking is shared by landlords and their tenants. The report is designed to support broad discussions related to agricultural land ownership and to provide a starting point for more detailed statistical analysis. Figures and tables. This is a print on demand report.
Just as investors want the companies they hold equity in to do well, homeowners have a financial interest in the success of their communities. If neighborhood schools are good, if property taxes and crime rates are low, then the value of the homeowner’s principal asset—his home—will rise. Thus, as William Fischel shows, homeowners become watchful citizens of local government, not merely to improve their quality of life, but also to counteract the risk to their largest asset, a risk that cannot be diversified. Meanwhile, their vigilance promotes a municipal governance that provides services more efficiently than do the state or national government. Fischel has coined the portmanteau word “homevoter” to crystallize the connection between homeownership and political involvement. The link neatly explains several vexing puzzles, such as why displacement of local taxation by state funds reduces school quality and why local governments are more likely to be efficient providers of environmental amenities. The Homevoter Hypothesis thereby makes a strong case for decentralization of the fiscal and regulatory functions of government.
Writing for researchers, professionals and graduate students, the authors summarize the collapse of populations of many farmland bird species in the 20th century, one of the biggest conservation problems of the day. They firstly set the historical context of change in agriculture and bird communities since the 18th century, and introduce the bird communities of agricultural land today. They then provide an overview of this very active area of applied conservation science, including in-depth case studies of 16 species that, taken together, illustrate the many ways that agricultural intensification has affected bird populations. Moreover, they show how this evidence base, coupled with recent greening of agriculture policy, has provided opportunities to manage agricultural land to better integrate the needs of food production and bird conservation. They conclude by looking forward to challenges that the conservation of bird populations on agricultural land is likely to face in the near future.