Although all were formed for the express purpose of using the conservation easement technique to protect farmland from urban conversion, the 46 sample programs differ in organization, achievements, funding, acquisition strategies, connections to local planning and community characteristics. Figure 1 summarizes some of these variations.

PROGRAM ORGANIZATION
The sample programs are operated by several different types of organizations:

• 30 county governments,
• four township governments,
• one city government,
• one special district government,
• three state governments,
• five nonprofit land trusts,
• one joint state-land trust program and
• one joint county-land trust program.

Longevity - The sample programs had been in operation an average of 21 years as of 2002. The oldest program-Suffolk County's in New York-was formed in 1974, almost 30 years ago. The two newest ones-in Routt County, Colorado, and Dunn Township, Wisconsin-were organized in 1996, barely seven years ago. In most cases, programs acquired their first easements 18 months or more after their organization, a result of funding delays and lengthy transactions.

Origins - What factors led to the formation of these programs? For 15 local programs, the origins were direct and simple; the availability of newly-approved state funds. A number of county governments in Maryland, New Jersey and Pennsylvania quickly formed easement programs to take advantage of the new funds, although these actions in some cases were preceded by local studies and planning. For 27 local programs, the precipitating factors were more deliberative and drawn out (see Figure 2). Usually starting with the expression of community concern about the effects of rapid urbanization on farmland loss, the process leading to formation included the mobilization of active citizens, local government-appointed study committees, commissioned studies, new land use policies and voter approval of funding sources. The formation of all four state-operated programs involved gubernatorial action and state legislation.

Internal Organization - Most of the programs have citizen oversight bodies appointed by the elected governing boards. These advisory bodies usually set acquisition standards and, guided by staff work, apply these criteria in reviewing landowner applications, although final decisions to spend money on purchases are usually approved by the elected boards.

Program Staff - All programs have paid professional staffs, varying in number of persons, full- or part-time status and degree of specialization. Staff numbers range from one part-time to a dozen or more persons, with the larger sizes allowing for specialized tasks such as property appraisals, legal work, and easement monitoring and other stewardship activities. In most cases, program staffs are administratively housed in planning, parks or other departments. Easement programs are independent units in a few local governments. There is no common organizational arrangement for the four state programs in the sample, with staffs housed in agricultural, planning and stand-alone departments.

EASEMENT ACTIVITY
As of 2002, our sample programs collectively had acquired a total of about 877,000 agricultural easement acres representing more than 5,800 separate easements. Twenty-seven programs had accumulated more than 10,000 easement acres each-nine programs had less than 5,000 acres each.

The bulk of easement acres are the result of direct purchase, but the national total also includes smaller amounts acquired through landowner donations, transfers of development rights and land use regulations.

Other programs - The actual volume of agricultural EASEMENT ACTIVITY in some localities and states is substantially higher when the preservation work of other programs is included. Sometimes in cooperation with the programs that are the focus of this study, other organizations also acquire agricultural easements. They are found in two-thirds of the sample communities and states, and in most cases they are nonprofit land trusts. Our information on the other programs is spotty and is complicated by their usually broad conservation goals and the accumulation of other kinds of properties as well as farmland. Projecting from available information, we estimate that the other programs had acquired at least 128,000 agricultural easement acres by 2002. When combined with the record of the sample programs, the total farm acres under easement in the 46 localities and states is a little more than 1 million acres.

Transfer of Development Rights Acres - Supplementing their purchase activities, at least 12 sample programs or other organizations in their communities or states also have transfer of development rights (TDR) arrangements for acquiring easements. About 55,300 easement acres have been acquired through this process in these areas. Many programs with TDR policies on their books, however, have recorded few or no transfers.

EASEMENT FUNDING
By 2002 the 46 sample programs had spent a total of about $1.8 billion from all fund sources to directly purchase farmland easements. This does not include the value of easements acquired through landowner donation and through TDRs and other forms of development mitigation.

Led by Howard County, Maryland ($193 million), and the state of Massachusetts ($135.9 million), eight programs have spent more than $60 million each on easement acquisitions. At the other end of the scale, six programs have recorded less than $10 million each. One program, the Napa Land Trust in California, does not purchase easements but relies entirely on landowner donations.

Purchase amounts across all programs have averaged about $2,000 per easement acre. This average masks a great range in the amounts paid for individual transactions, varying from a few hundred dollars to highs of more than $100,000 per acre in a few cases. Across the nation, the most expensive transactions per acre are in certain suburban counties in the New York City, Philadelphia and Baltimore metropolitan areas with intense development pressures and hence high land values. The lowest prices are paid by programs in remote rural counties, some with farm landscapes dominated by grazing land, and by the Delaware and Vermont state programs.

Revenue Sources - Almost three-fourths (34) of the sample programs rely on a mix of state funds and local taxes to fund their acquisitions. Five programs, generally in states without state government assistance, tap only local tax funds. Seven others, including the four programs entirely managed by state governments, do not use local funds at all. In dollar amounts, state governments provide the dominant share of acquisition funds-an estimated 60 percent of the total spent.

The federal role in funding agricultural easements was widespread but minimal for individual programs through 2002. At least 32 of the sample programs received support from this source under the 1996 Farm Bill to match other revenue, but in most cases the federal funds contributed less than 3 percent of total acquisition spending. With considerably expanded funding under the 2002 Farm Bill, the federal role is bound to become more important in future years.

As Figure 3 identifies, local fund sources include annual appropriations from general funds, dedicated property taxes, local property transfer taxes and sales taxes. As well as funding acquisitions directly, these local revenues are also used to retire the bonds that 21 programs have issued to accelerate the pace of acquisitions. Voters approved revenue measures in 21 jurisdictions (multiple times in some places) for bond issues and tax increases.

Non-Purchase Acquisitions - Programs also acquire easements without spending funds, through landowner donations and TDRs and other developer-provided mitigation for the loss of farmland. We lack sufficient information from the experiences of individual programs to provide a confident estimate of the value of these two forms of contributions, but it could be as high as 15 percent of the value of cash payments.

Virtually all sample programs enjoy the benefits of partial donations, in which landowners accept only a part of the full appraised value of their development rights as cash and contribute the remainder for tax benefits. Only a few programs regularly obtain full landowner donations.

In the mitigation approach, developers pay the cost of acquiring easements elsewhere as compensation for the loss of farmland converted to urban uses-either by engaging in TDR transactions or by purchasing easements to satisfy local government requirements for getting their projects approved. Twelve programs in the sample have TDR arrangements. Four other programs directly acquire easements purchased by developers as a land use requirement.

ACQUISITION STRATEGIES
With the exception of one program that "takes applications as they come," all the sample programs apply more or less formal criteria in selecting parcels for easement purchase. Thirty-three use quantitative ranking schemes, and 12 employ only qualitative or primarily subjective criteria. Ranking schemes are usually variations of the Land Evaluation and Site Assessment (LESA) system, developed in the early 1980s by USDA soil conservationists as an objective measure of the merits of keeping individual parcels in farming and avoiding conversion to urban uses.

Quantitative Rankings - Agricultural quality (soils, productivity)-a standard LESA factor-is the measure used most frequently in numerical rankings and is often given more weight than any other factor. But most programs have added to traditional LESA formats by making use of criteria that highlight farmers' capacity and skills (conservation practices, farm family history, stewardship practices, succession, etc.), create large blocks of protected farmland (proximity to other protected land), and award complementary community practices, such as agricultural zoning and certain growth management policies.

How Applied? - While 13 programs that use quantitative ranking automatically accept the scoring results, 20 others allow decision makers some discretion to use other factors as well. Often quantitative scores are not the decisive factor that sorts out successful and unsuccessful application, but are used to prioritize applications for funding and after basic eligibility is determined by the application of minimum standards such as parcel size and enrollment in an agricultural district. The final funding determination in a few programs is based on the direct cost to the program of acquiring the easement, as reduced by landowner donations or funds from other sources.

Geographical Targeting - Twenty-one programs use some degree of geographical targeting in their selection processes. Usually this is a qualitative factor that is rather explicit-location in preserve areas, in agricultural zones, in towns that support a county program, etc. But some targeting occurs in a much more open-ended fashion, as program managers use their discretion to place easements in strategic locations that are not expressly defined but have the potential to influence future land use patterns.

PLANNING CONNECTIONS
There is a potential two-way complementary relationship between agricultural easement programs and local planning policies, with the possibility for each to strengthen the other. Agricultural easements can be a powerful tool for carrying out the land preservation and growth management goals of local government plans. On the other hand, easement activities are also enhanced by the degree to which local planning and land use regulations limit incompatible development around easement parcels and stimulate the emergence of large, contiguous blocks of protected land.

Two inherent obstacles to a mutually-reinforcing relationship are suggested by program experiences. One is that only 21 programs-a minority of the sample-are operated by the same local governments that have the planning and land use responsibilities. The 25 formally unconnected programs are managed by nonprofit land trusts, state governments and county governments in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, where planning is in the hands of townships and other municipalities. Several cases of collaboration across organizational lines, however, suggest that the institutional differences are not always fatal.

The second obstacle to creating a complementary relationship comes in the reluctance of many local governments and their communities to adopt strong growth control measures that restrict residential development in agricultural areas. Comprehensive land use plans are common in the communities served by agricultural easement programs, virtually all containing language addressing farmland protection. But translating general goals into regulatory tools that directly support easement programs is a more difficult matter.

The third in our series of project reports, Easements and Land Use Planning, will examine these relationships in much greater detail. But this initial comparison of the 46 programs allows the following general findings about easement-planning connections.

Complementary Relations - Where strong connections exist, they appear in both explicit and indirect forms. The explicit examples are where easement programs were formed expressly to implement firm local farmland preservation policies. Less direct are local government policies that, without referring to easements, set the scene for their effective location through land use restrictions in agricultural areas. The common element in both forms is that program managers, planners and local elected officials see agricultural easements and planning as mutually-supportive actions. Among the specific regulatory tools that support the connection are the designation and mapping of growth and preservation areas, urban growth boundaries and limitations on the location of public water and sewer service. Many local governments in the sample require or allow voluntary cluster arrangements for the location of residences in rural areas, but the degree to which this protects large blocks of land for serious farming is uncertain.

Zoning and Density - Zoning is a standard technique throughout the nation for protecting farmland and other rural land uses by designating allowed land uses and residential densities. Yet agricultural zoning exists in only a little more than half of the communities served by the sample easement programs. And in only a few cases is it "exclusive" agricultural zoning, limiting uses strictly to farming or farm-related activities. Residential densities vary greatly. Among the 31 local jurisdictions for which we have clear information, maximum effective densities in agricultural areas range from one unit to one acre (1:1) to 1:320. Seven jurisdictions have 1:1 or 1:2 and 12 have densities lower than 1:21.

COMMUNITY CHARACTERISTICS
The typical community served by the 42 local agricultural easement programs in our research sample is a suburban county or township with a population between 100,000 to 500,000. It is part of a major metropolitan area and contains a still significant farmland base, although much reduced in recent decades by urban growth.

Population - Location in a metropolitan area-"Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area" as identified by the Census-is the dominant geographical fact of the great majority of the local programs. About half are within the orbits of five of the nation's largest metropolitan regions-New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, D.C. and San Francisco. Only seven programs in the sample are located in non-metropolitan and relatively rural areas.

All but 10 of the communities served by local programs had 2000 populations of at least 100,000 residents apiece; three had populations exceeding 1 million. Rapid population increase is also a common characteristic. Most communities had population increases in 1990 to 2000 exceeding 10 percent, nine grew by more than 25 percent. No community lost population during this period.

Farmland - The states and communities served by the 46 programs contain a total of about
11 million farmland acres of various types-cropland, grazing acres, pastures and even small sections of woodland included in farm parcels. As a direct result of population growth and urbanization, the conversion of agricultural acres to other uses is a continuing pattern.

Farm Production - In the aggregate value of farm commodities sold, the sample includes some of the most productive agricultural counties in the nation as well as some of the most modest local farm economies. Annual farm market values, as measured by the Census of Agriculture in 1997, ranged from more than $1 billion to a few million dollars for individual counties. Seven sample counties were in the top 100 counties nationwide in market value of farm production in 1997. The diversity of agricultural commodities represented in the sample is notable. The most important commodities according to the number of localities and states for which they ranked at the top in value in 1997 are: nursery/greenhouse crops (15 mentions), dairy products (8) and poultry (6). Other top-ranked commodities for one or more localities or states are fruit, vegetables, cattle, equine, wine grapes, tobacco and field crops. Considering the metropolitan location of most programs and the proximity of urban growth, it is not surprising that many of their agricultural economies specialize in growing horticultural products and produce for nearby urban markets.

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