Conservation Easements

Reader comment on: Two More Points on the Estate Tax
in response to reader comment: Have you considered a conservation easement?

Submitted by J.Johnson (United States), Sep 7, 2010 10:53

As I understand them, Ag Easements in our area are perpetual, so if we went that way, we would permanently lock in ag use on our land. I've seen this happen elsewhere and sometimes the farmer or his heirs wind up severely regretting such a decision, especially if the land around the farm is (or becomes) non-ag land and those non-ag uses adversly impact the farmers' activities. Many, if not most, people in residential subdivisions wind up eventually objecting to some farm activities, including odors or machinery on the roads or machinery noise, et al. and continuing farming in a 'transitional' area becomes increasingly difficult. In addition, fewer and fewer people are willing to work on someone else's farm, so finding labor is more difficult and fewer people are interested in becoming farmers, so the number of farms and farmers is shrinking. The bottom line is that, thru zoning and spending and other activities, local and state govts. are making farming harder and thus locking land permanently into ag uses makes less and less sense for many farmers, us included.

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