Agricultural & Conservation Easements

Partner with SRT to protect your farmland….forever.

SRT’s mission is to help farmers protect the world’s most productive farmland. We partner with California farmers to ensure farms remain in agriculture forever. Whether you are a San Joaquin Valley farmer or Southern Sierra Nevada foothills rancher interested in protecting your property, read on to learn how we can help.

The land agreement we use to protect farms is called an Agricultural Conservation Easement. Placing an easement on your farm is an effective way to ensure your farm remains productive for generations to come. Through an easement, the landowner either sells or donates the right to develop the land to Sequoia Riverlands Trust, which cannot exercise that right. The result is a property that must always be used for agriculture. This land protection easement is entirely voluntary, and once one is in place it is permanent.

Every Agricultural Conservation Easement is custom and therefore unlike any other. Each is tailored to landowner’s desires and vision, the interests of the land trust, and the unique characteristics of the land. The landowner retains ownership and use of the property, and Sequoia Riverlands Trust is not involved in daily operations of your farm.

Numerous benefit result from placing an Agricultural Conservation Easement on your farmland.  An easement can provide:

• The peace of mind that comes with knowing your family farm will forever remain a farm.

• A way to keep the family farm intact through inheritances or other ownership changes.

• A cash infusion for farming operations, debt reduction, or other uses.

• A potential reduction in property and estate taxes.