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| Amish Country, Ohio Photo: Ileana Johnson 2015 |
With its grant-making
power (‘visioning grants’ and ‘challenge grants’) and conservation easements,
the federal government promoted the Sustainable Development idea and policies
to the state and local levels with the creation of an army of new community of Sustainable
Development NGOs (non-government organizations) such as the American Planning
Association, the Sustainable Resource Center, and the Institute for Sustainable
Development.
Conservation easements,
known also as conservation covenants, agricultural easements, and conservation
restrictions are contracts between a landowner and a conservation organization,
giving the conservation trust power over the use of the land for years or in
perpetuity. Such easements “run with the land,” and present and future
landowners must abide by this conservation contract which is recorded in the
local land records as the easement becomes part of the title for the property.
Conservations easements
include a laundry list of objectives established by the land trust and agreed
to by the farmer:
-
Maintain and
improve water quality (this may include onerous conditions to the farmer’s use or
collection of water, including rain puddles and snowmelt)
-
Grow healthy
forests
-
Maintain and
improve wildlife habitat and migration corridors
-
Protect scenic
views; anything the farmer may desire to build or plant/grow cannot interfere
with the view shed
-
Land must be
managed for sustainable agriculture and forestry as determined by the trust
that holds the farmer’s conservation easement and is subject to rigorous and
frequent inspections.
Real estate development
and subdivisions are strictly forbidden in a conservation easement. The
decision to place land under conservation easement for tax benefits is
voluntary but the land can become locked in perpetuity, no matter who inherits
or buys the land in question. The restrictions
placed on the land become permanent and it can reduce the resale value of the
property.
In every state, the actual
conservation easement contract is kept private between the land owner and the
land trust.
The Ohio Department of
Agriculture announced its local agricultural easements approved for purchase on
June 4, 2015 for “local sponsors to purchase agricultural easements on 54
family farms representing 7,512 acres in 26 counties.”
The local sponsors
included land trusts, counties, a township, and local Soil and Water Conservation
Districts. They received funds to make the purchase from the Clean Ohio Fund
and to manage the Local Agricultural Easement Purchase Program (LAEPP). The easement purchases are
advertised as insurance that “farms remain permanently in agricultural production.”
The ulterior motives are much divorced from this public statement.
Farmers who want to lock
their land in such conservation easement contracts are financially rewarded and
must meet certain criteria:
-
Farm must be
larger than 40 acres or next to an already “preserved” farm
-
Must actively
engage in farming
-
Participate in
the Current Agricultural Use Valuation program
-
Prove good
stewardship of the land (Farmers already take good care of their land because
it represents their livelihood.)
-
Be supported by
local government
-
Not be in close
proximity to real estate development
-
The money
received from the conservation easement purchase can be spent any way the
farmer wishes; however, “most reinvest it in their farm operation.”
The Ohio Farmland
Preservation program derives its funds from the Clean Ohio Conservation Fund,
approved by voters in 2008. The purchase of conservation easements is made
through a “competitive process” from “willing sellers.”
According to
its website, there are 55,947 acres of land locked in conservation perpetuity, “preserved”
under permanent easements. “From 2002-2014, 247 family farms in 53 counties
have collectively preserved 45,576 acres in agricultural production.” A list of counties approved for easements in
2015 is included here. http://www.agri.ohio.gov/public_docs/news/2015/06.04.15%20Local%20Agricultural%20Easements%20Approved%20for%20Purchase.pdf
The Office of Farmland Preservation lists the 2015
Clean Ohio LAEPP recipients by county, the specific local sponsoring
land trust, the name of the farmer, Tier I or Tier II, acreage per farm, ODA’s
contribution to the purchase offer in dollars, and the actual final offer. Who
is supplying the difference? http://www.agri.ohio.gov/divs/FarmLand/docs/Farm_LAEPP_Final2015.pdf
I imagine that it would be hard for a farmer to turn
down an offer of $500,000 to “preserve” his farming land, especially if they were
strapped for cash. Often, it is difficult to see the bigger picture in the future,
beyond one’s farm, and to understand that such conservation easement contracts
are not just about being a good steward of your farm and of the environment.
They also represent control of private property and its use.
As a
matter of fact, the sample deed for the federal government states on page 18, “To
HAVE AND TO HOLD the above-described Agricultural Easement to the use, benefit,
and behalf of the Grantees, and the United States and their successors and
assigns forever.” http://www.agri.ohio.gov/divs/FarmLand/docs/Farm_LAEPP_Approved_Sample_Deed_Federal.pdf
Here is the Local Agricultural Easement
Purchase Program (LAEPP) approved sample deed for the state of
Ohio. http://www.agri.ohio.gov/divs/FarmLand/docs/Farm_LAEPP_Approved_Sample_Deed_State.pdf
The Ohio Farmland Preservation
Map can be found here, including agricultural easements held by ODA and
Agricultural Security Areas. http://www.agri.ohio.gov/divs/FarmLand/docs/Farm_ASA_AgMap.pdf
Agricultural Security Areas (ASA) are part of a voluntary program for farmers and landowners, administered at the state level as a tool to protect farmland from the “urbanization of rural areas.” Township supervisors handle the petitions for ASA designation status. http://www.agriculture.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/gateway/PTARGS_0_2_24476_10297_0_43/AgWebsite/ProgramDetail.aspx?palid=10&
Sheila Stanifer, Perry Township
Trustee, has a problem with these conservation easements. According to the Ohio Revised Code 901-2-01
definitions, “‘local sponsor’ or ‘applicant’ means a municipal corporation,
county, township, soil and water conservation district, or charitable
organization that applies for a matching grant on behalf of the landowner.” The
problem arises from the fact that ‘soil and water’ are taking the place of elected
officials; charitable trusts (namely land trusts) are not elected officials
either, they are land brokers working for the state government as a so-called ‘sponsor.’”
In the first and second
paragraphs of the federal deed contract mentions are made of the Commodity
Credit Corporation (CCC), a government-owned and operated organization created
to “stabilize, support, and protect farm income and prices, maintain balanced
and adequate supplies of agricultural commodities and aids in their orderly
distribution.” CCC has no operating personnel; its activity is carried out by the
Farm Service Agency (FSA). The Natural Resources Conservation Service
administers several conservation programs under the auspices of CCC.
CCC has an authorized capital
stock of $100 million, held by the United States, with the authority to have
outstanding borrowing of up to $30 billion at any one time. The 1988
Appropriation Act increased the statutory borrowing authority to $30 billion.
The funds are borrowed from the U.S. Treasury and from private lending
agencies. CCC reserves borrowing authority to purchase at any time all notes
and other obligations made by such agencies and others. That is a lot of power
over farm activities! http://www.fsa.usda.gov/FSA/newsReleases?area=newsroom&subject=landing&topic=pfs&newstype=prfactsheet&type=detail&item=pf_19991101_comop_en_ccc.html
Many of these land trusts are
also staffed with environmental activists who have never farmed in their lives
nor have ever entertained the idea. They want the land preserved for
wilderness. Additionally, it is much cheaper and easier to control densely
populated urban areas than it is to control rural populations spread over vast
areas.
Seventeen years ago on July 1,
1998, David F. Latham, editor of The Montanian, published a front page article titled “FWP plans big changes in hunting and rural
living, Social engineering is in the works.” The Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Parks
(FWP) in Montana had prepared a document called the Wildlife Program Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement
at a cost of $600,000.
Lincoln County commissioner at
the time, Rita Windom, said that only seven meetings took place in Montana to
inform citizens about the “big changes planned for the way it (FWP) manages
wildlife, hunting, and rural living patterns” and she happened to have attended
one of these meetings in 1992. Incidentally, 1992 is the year when U.N. Agenda
21 was signed in Rio by 179 countries, including the U.S.
Even though limited public
input was permitted during poorly advertised meetings, some of which had only nine
people in attendance, the ultimate decision-maker was the FWP. Windom added
that the FWP document “includes plans to manipulate human
populations in rural areas.”
“They are saying they want
social changes. They talk about the increasing importance of environmental
concerns nationally, and the increasing reliance on referendums and grass-roots
politics for political change. They [FWP] say that social and economic values
towards natural resources are becoming less consumptive… nationally. The
emergence of the animal rights movement exemplifies national pressure to shift
to a less consumptive use at state and local levels,” Windom said, referring to the FWP environmental
impact statement plan.
As quoted in the front page article, Windom
added that [FWP] “is going to change the use of the land and take the personal
property off the land on conservation easements, which would mean ranchers and
farmers could no longer use the land the way it is currently being used. That
is a big departure to the way we have known conservation easements in the past.”
Windom explained that “the plan would in essence tax rural property owners for the
wildlife on their property.”
David F. Latham wrote that Commissioner Windom
recalled how “one employee of FWP told her the plan is designed to push rural
residents into urban areas.” As many residents asked hard questions, the FWP
state land manager, Darlene Edge, told Lincoln County commissioner Rita Windom,
“Can’t
you see we are doing you a favor by forcing people to move from the rural areas
into the urban areas. That way you can close roads… Why don’t you work with us
and move these people out of the rural areas and into the urban areas so cities
can shoulder more of the responsibilities and the county can save money?”
A quick check of the Wildlands
Project Map reveals the “simulated reserve and corridor system to protect
biodiversity as mandated by the Convention on Biological Diversity, The
Wildland Project, U.N. and U.S. Man and Biosphere Program, and Various U.N.,
U.S. Heritage Programs, and Nafta.” The vast majority of U.S. land is pictured
in red, with “little to no human use,” and in yellow, “buffer zones with highly
regulated use.” http://www.propertyrightsresearch.org/images/wildlands_map.jpg
The Convention on Biological
Diversity passed the Senate Foreign Relation Committee by a vote of 16-3 on
June 29, 1994. However, one hour before a scheduled vote by the Senate, “the
treaty was pulled from the calendar and a vote on the treaty was never taken.” But the Clinton administration implemented the
treaty anyway through a policy called “Ecosystem Management.” (A Short Course in Global Governance, Henry
Lamb, Sovereignty International, Inc., p. 12, 2010)
David Latham wrote in the
Montanian that FWP sent letters to the Amish community in the West Kootenai and
had an ‘informational meeting’ to “show them that conservation easements weren’t
all that bad,” said Windom. Windom expressed her frustration with the secrecy
of FWP, “in my opinion they purposely didn’t disseminate these documents.”
As more and more farmers are voluntarily
trapped in conservation easements for years or in perpetuity, they are finding
out that the terms of the contract can be draconian, with little recourse or
defense from state and local governments. Few states like Virginia were successful in passing laws to protect farmers from the intrusion of government with U.N. Sustainable Development plans, but these laws do not go far enough. U.N. Agenda 21 goals through its Sustainable Development lynchpin have encroached private property rights like kudzu.
Note
I am grateful to David F.
Latham, editor of the Montanian, who had to search his pre-digital archives to accommodate
my request on such a short notice.
I am also grateful to Sheila
Stanifer, Perry Township Trustee from Ohio , for her valuable research contribution
(links).
COPYRIGHT: Ileana Johnson 2015
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