2022 Schedule – Central Time

Development of the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP) following passage of the 2018 Farm Bill resulted in the establishment of three new NRCS easement programs—RCPP Entity-held Easements, RCPP U.S.-held Easements and RCPP Alternative Funding Arrangements Easements. Within the past year, program policy, minimum deed terms and deed templates have been published and projects have started moving easements through the various steps toward closure. In this session, participants will get a status update on RCPP and learn about the distinct policy and procedural approaches of the three types of RCPP easements. Participants will walk away with an understanding of how the three RCPP easement types differ and which type might work best for their proposed project.

We all depend on farmland, but people of color who want to farm face barriers to owning the land they need to grow food. In 2016, Groundswell Conservancy broadened its traditional farmland protection work to serve farmers of color and new American farmers. Groundswell has taken a grassroot approach to serving the farmers. By listening to them, Groundswell found pathways to knock down barriers and create opportunities for them to grow food for sale and subsistence, and to participate in land-based healing and educational programming. We have done so by sharing our power and privileges as a White-led and White dominated organization.

In 2021 Whiterock Conservancy launched the nation's first-ever soil health conservation easement program. This one-of-a-kind program is focused on preserving an often overlooked natural resource, soil. Soil has been degrading and eroding across the nation at an alarming rate. Soil health conservation easements provide a vehicle for private landowners to take action on climate change while still working the lands they love. Join us to learn more about creating the nation's first soil health conservation easement program and how your land trust can replicate Whiterock Conservancy's soil health conservation easement program.

This workshop explores the growing evidence that careful adaptive (regenerative) management of grazing animals on natural and working lands can often improve ecological health and resilience and create valuable economic and social co-benefits. Participants will learn about the principles of regenerative management, diverse examples of its successful application across North America, and how to write regenerative grazing leases using the newly released publication by California FarmLink and TomKat Ranch Guide to Regenerative Grazing Leases: Opportunities for Resilience.

Learn about landscape-scale efforts to conserve farmland, improve water quality, and enhance public access through the development of new partnerships, use of innovative funding, and by embracing both conservation and land-use planning strategies from two organizations operating in the headwaters of the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia. The session will describe how the Alliance for the Shenandoah Valley and The Piedmont Environmental Council were able to build staff and partner capacity and accelerate conservation outcomes with water as the through line for all of their work. Regardless of organizational size or area of focus, this session will inspire relentless incrementalism for a watershed-wide, large landscape partnership approach to conservation.

Is your land trust new to utilizing the ACEP-ALE Program? Do you have questions about how the program can help your land trust conserve working lands in perpetuity? Join NRCS Easement Program Division team members for ACEP 101 + Program Updates. During the session, you'll learn how ACEP-ALE can work for your land trust, tips for navigating the application process, and have an opportunity to connect with fellow practitioners and NRCS staff and hear first-hand experiences with the program.

As land trusts and public Purchase of Agricultural Conservation Easement (PACE) programs expand their programing to address farmland access and affordability, more are looking to tools that restrict the resale of protected agricultural land in some way. Come join us in a lively discussion about Options to Purchase at Agricultural Value (also known as Preemptive Purchase Rights) and two new tools being pioneered to keep protected land available for farmers and ranchers. These include Resale Purchase Limits, a new approach being pioneered by the Colorado Cattlemen’s Agricultural Land Trust, and an Affordability Easement Overlay that American Farmland Trust developed for a recent project. We’ll compare the merits of the three approaches and how they have been received by lenders and landowners. We’ll discuss issues around valuation and appraisals and will consider how well these tools are working to keep farmland affordable and in active agricultural use.

So much land to save, so little time. Most land trusts simply don’t have the capacity to do every conservation project that comes their way. Strategic conservation planning is a crucial tool for land trusts to focus their time, energy, and funding to allow them to preserve the land that matters most. In this session, you will hear from Connecticut Farmland Trust, a statewide agricultural land trust, and The Land Trust for Tennessee, a statewide land trust, about their recent strategic conservation planning processes. Aside from giving staff the freedom to say “no” to some projects and an enthusiastic “yes” to others, the strategic conservation planning process has had other, more unexpected outcomes. New funding streams! Creative new programs! New partnerships! Learn how a strategic conservation plan can help you refocus your priorities and take your land trust to the next level. Guiding questions such as “what type of land is most important to conserve?” and “who are we conserving this land for?” will frame the conversation around equity and the future of land conservation. Participants will come away with a deeper understanding of strategic conservation planning, how it’s done, and what the potential benefits are for their land trust.