This summer, Jefferson Land Trust and the Jefferson LandWorks Collaborative released a new guidebook designed to support other land trusts and conservation partners interested in increasing working farmland access and resilience. The guidebook, called Selling Conserved Farmland and Advancing Viability: A Practical Guide to the Final Stage of Buy-Protect-Sell Projects, outlines equitable, replicable models for transferring protected farmland in a way that sustains agricultural viability, ensures long-term land stewardship, and increases access for historically underserved farmers.
Jefferson Land Trust’s “Selling Conserved Farmland and Advancing Viability” guidebook.
The Buy-Protect-Sell model of farmland protection is an innovative model increasingly being used by land trusts across the nation. With this model, a land trust buys important farmland, protects it with an agricultural conservation easement, and then sells the land to the next farmer or rancher at a price that‘s more affordable (as its value is reduced because of the conservation easement). The selection of the new farm owner is guided by a carefully designed process focused on equitable access.
Our guidebook, focused on the “sell” stage of the process, draws on nearly a decade of hands-on experience, successes, and lessons learned related to handling innovative farmland transfers that balance conservation goals with equitable land access and long-term farm viability.
The publication is freely available to other land trusts and conservation entities across the country, and we’ve received great appreciation for the information and resources contained in the guidebook.
Working with our partners at Jefferson LandWorks, Jefferson Land Trust has been an innovator in using the Buy-Protect-Sell model. Our guidebook was informed by our experience in 2021-22 of working in partnership with the Kawamoto family and a volunteer community selection committee to choose the next farmer for Quilcene’s Kawamoto Farm (now called Kawamoto-Wipala Farm), and our similar experience over the past few years with a property in Chimacum we call the North Beaver Valley farmland.
Aerial shot of Kawamoto-Wipala Farm in autumn. Photo by John Gussman.
We created the guidebook in response to requests from other land trusts that have heard about these projects and have been interested in utilizing similarly structured community selection processes for Buy-Protect-Sell projects on agricultural lands in their regions.
Blaise Sullivan, the Land Trust’s Conservation Project Manager, co-authored the guidebook with Kellie Henwood, a former Jefferson Land Trust board member who is the Regional Small Farms Coordinator at Washington State University’s Extension for Jefferson, Clallam, and Kitsap counties and facilitator of the Jefferson LandWorks Collaborative. The publication was completed with the support of the Land Trust Alliance’s Western Innovation Grant.
Jefferson Land Trust has been protecting farmland in East Jefferson County for the benefit of farmers, wildlife, and our community since 1992. We’re excited that local service providers and Washington State agencies have been creating initiatives to support the Buy-Protect-Sell model. We hope that this guidebook will be useful in helping conservation organizations across the state and nation complete their land protection projects and goals and help promote broader access to farmland.
