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Department of Agriculture, Weights and Measures, recommending the Board approve and authorize the Agricultural Commissioner to sign the El Dorado Community Foundation agreement for management of Conservation Easement Program donations.
FUNDING: Donations.
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DISCUSSION / BACKGROUND
On June 23, 2020 The Board of Supervisors adopted Resolution No. 104-2020 adopting Voluntary Agricultural Conservation Easement Program with El Dorado Community Foundations draft proposal attached with intent of returning to the Board with a finalized agreement.
The County’s agricultural lands are currently facing two key development pressures. One is the pending retirements of many of the existing farmers and how the farm land will be handed down to family members and secondly, the subdivision of former grazing lands next to existing ranches. El Dorado County has established various protections for agricultural lands such as: the General Plan Agricultural District overlay with minimum parcel sizes, the Agricultural Zones, Right to Farm, Ranch Marketing, Wineries, and Agricultural Preserves (Williamson Act) sections of the Zoning Ordinance. Even with these protections the California Department of Conservation’s Farmland Mapping and Monitoring Program continues to show conversions of farm and grazing lands to urban uses in the county. Urban development next to agricultural lands indirectly reduces the agricultural potential of remaining farms by increasing the potential for urban and agricultural conflicts. These conflicts can also reduce the current and future uses of the surrounding land for agricultural purposes.
An Agricultural Conservation Easement program is another tool that can protect farm and grazing lands. The program involves the voluntary purchase or donation of development rights from willing landowners to public agencies such as the California Department of Fish and Wildlife or nonprofit land trust such as the Rangeland Trust or American River Conserv...
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