Identify Farmland Protection Partners

Participating in ACEP-ALE requires that you first find an eligible entity that will agree to hold the easement on your land. This entity will be your farmland protection partner throughout the application and acquisition processes and will continue to monitor and enforce the easement on your land once the closing is complete.

The entity will be the primary applicant for ACEP-ALE and is responsible for gathering and submitting the application materials and supporting documentation. The entity is the applicant because they are requesting the matching funds from NRCS to help pay you for the easement on your land.

Entities that are eligible to participate in ACEP-ALE are nonprofit organizations, like land trusts, state or local government bodies, or Indian tribes. The entity must have an existing program that protects farmland or ranchland in order to be eligible. Here are examples and explanations of the most common types of entities.

Land Trusts

A land trust is a private, nonprofit organization that protects natural resources such as productive farm and forest land, watersheds, rivers and streams and recreational areas. Land trusts acquire land and/or conservation easements, accept donated land and/or easements, facilitate land protection projects, and steward properties and easements to ensure that the conservation purposes are upheld over time.

State and Local Programs and Agencies

Programs administered by public agencies can participate in ACEP-ALE.

The most active public entities are Purchase of Agricultural Conservation Easement Programs (PACE) that pay property owners to keep productive land available for agriculture. PACE is known as purchase of development rights (PDR) in many locations.

Twenty-eight states have agencies that administer PACE as a public program, often through the State Department of Agriculture. The state program either purchases and manages easements directly or provides funds that local governments or non-governmental organizations can use to purchase and manage the easement. Local PACE programs work the same way though are administered at the local level by a county, city or town government. 

Another local entity that can serve as a partner is a local soil and water conservation district. Soil and water conservation districts are in almost every county in the U.S. and work with landowners in their area to promote resource conservation.

Tribal Entities

Tribal entities also are eligible to participate in ACEP-ALE. They must be a “federally recognized Tribe”, meaning they are listed in an annual publication from the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) in the Federal Register.

READ

1. PACE Fact Sheet
2. State PACE Programs Fact Sheet
3. Local PACE Programs Fact Sheet

WATCH

1. How to Use the Farmland Protection Directory 

USE

1. Farmland Protection Directory
2. Land Trust Alliance – Find a Land Trust Tool
3. Conservation District Directory
4. List of Federally Recognized Tribes
5. List of National Tribal Organizations

Explore Your Eligibility

Landowners who want to apply to ACEP-ALE need to meet minimum eligibility criteria related to income and on-farm conservation compliance. Each landowner must separately qualify to receive USDA funds to be eligible. Therefore, it is important to identify every person or entity that has ownership rights in the land prior to applying, as each will need to separately complete eligibility documentation. If the land is owned by an entity, all members of that entity must meet income requirements. Depending on the entity ownership structure, members may need to meet conservation compliance requirements. Your farmland protection partner and the staff at USDA’s Farm Service Agency can help guide you through the eligibility certification process.

In order to be eligible, you will need to have the following three items:

• An average Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) below $900,000 for the three preceding tax years.
• Compliance with USDA’s conservation requirements for highly erodible land and wetlands.
• Farm records established with FSA.

The Farm Service Agency (FSA) is an agency of the USDA that handles many financial operations for the department’s programming. For ACEP-ALE, FSA is the agency that verifies landowner eligibility to receive funding.

FSA offices are often co-located with NRCS offices. These offices are called Service Centers and have locations in almost every county across the country. You can make an appointment with your local Service Center to get the relevant forms and receive assistance completing them. When making your appointment, ask FSA staff what documentation you should bring with you in order to streamline the process. If you have participated in USDA programs in the past, you may have records already established that identify the parcels you own and/or farm and other farm information.

FSA staff will enter your identifying information and parcel information into USDA’s centralized Service Center Information Management System (SCIMS), which is needed to process your eligibility certification. The resulting report is a Subsidiary Print that summarizes key eligibility information. Ideally, this documentation should be completed at least 2 to 3 months before applying. You should contact FSA and start the process as early as the start of the new federal fiscal year (October 1).

READ

1. FSA AGI Fact Sheet
2. USDA Conservation Compliance Fact Sheet
3. ACEP-ALE Fact Sheet
4. Example Subsidiary Print

USE

1. Landowner Eligibility Checklist 
2. USDA Service Center Locator

Check Your Land’s Eligibility

Have a discussion with your farmland protection partner about the criteria that need to be satisfied to make your land eligible for ACEP-ALE funding. Work with your partner to talk about your long-term land planning needs and goals and discuss how to make an ACEP-ALE easement work for your land within the program guidelines.

In order for your land to be eligible, it needs to satisfy a list of criteria:

• Be privately owned or tribal agricultural land on a farm or ranch;
• Fits into one of the four eligibility categories listed below when applying:
  • Contains at least 50% prime, unique, or other productive soil,
  • Contains historical or archaeological resources,
  • Protects grazing uses and related conservation values, or
  • Furthers a state or local government policy consistent with the purposes of ACEP.
• Be identified as cropland, pastureland, rangeland, grassland or other grazing land, and/or nonindustrial private forest land that contributes to the economic viability of the parcel or serves as a buffer from development; and
• Be subject to a written pending offer from an eligible entity to purchase agricultural land, or be subject to a buy-protect-sell transaction.

The following two items are listed as eligibility criteria in the ACEP-ALE program manual. In practice, NRCS will not consider projects to be ineligible based on these factors. These factors are considered in ranking. Be prepared to provide evidence of these factors at the time of application to make your project more competitive.

• Have access to markets, infrastructure, and other agricultural support services; and
• Be experiencing development pressure.

Thinking about what land to enroll in this program is important to do at the outset. The configuration of the acres that are proposed for enrollment will impact your land’s eligibility and ranking. If the proposed easement boundaries are different than the property boundaries, you may need to procure a survey. 

Start exploring potential easement boundaries using the Web Soil Survey tool below, noting your property’s land uses and soil quality. For more information about whether you and your land qualify for ACEP-ALE, review and discuss these resources along with your farmland protection partner, and visit the ACEP-ALE for Entities page.

READ

1. ACEP-ALE Fact Sheet

WATCH

1. How to Use the Web Soil Survey

USE

1. Land Eligibility Checklist
2. Web Soil Survey