The Farmland Protection Program (FPP) is a voluntary program that helps
landowners keep their land in agriculture, and protects historic sites on
agricultural lands. The program provides matching funds to organizations with
existing farmland protection, or other conservation easement programs, to
purchase conservation easements on land. FPP is re-authorized in the Farm
Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 (The Farm Bill). The U.S Department of
Agriculture’s (USDA) Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) manages the
program.
How FPP works
USDA works through state, tribal, and local governments, and non-governmental
organizations, such as Land Trusts, to conduct FPP. These entities acquire
conservation easements from landowners. Participating landowners agree not to
convert their land to non-agricultural uses and to develop and implement a
conservation plan with NRCS.
To participate, a landowner develops a Conservation Easement agreement with a
Land Trust or other entity. The entity then submits a proposal to the NRCS state
conservationist through a local USDA Service Center. Proposals are then
evaluated for eligibility. If eligible proposals exceed available funding for
the year, then proposals are ranked to determine the distribution of funding.
Proposals that are eligible but unfunded due to insufficient USDA funding, can
be retained for funding consideration the following year.
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