State bills would give farmers incentives to stay on their land

Two proposals target Prince George’s farmers

One bill would grant a property tax credit to county farmers who participate in state or county preservation easement programs. The other would secure funding for a county agricultural land preservation program that was created in 2006 but has been inoperable because of complications with the funding source.

If the bills pass, farmers could save a combined $11,000 in tax credits in fiscal 2009, and the county’s land preservation program could have $5 million available in fiscal 2009 to buy easements on farmland, supporters said.

The county has about 50,000 acres of agriculturally assessed land, according to the Prince George’s Soil Conservation District.

The $5 million would be ‘‘a huge shot in the arm” for farmland preservation efforts, said Prince George’s County Councilman Thomas E. Dernoga (D-Dist. 1) of Laurel, who helped draft the bills as chairman of the county’s Agricultural Preservation Work Group.

Area farmers said preservation easements and tax credits are popular as alternatives to selling their land to housing developers. But there has not been enough money in county and state easement programs to meet the demand, so some said they welcome the bills.

‘‘There’s interest in [preservation easements],” said Alvin Turner, who owns a 100-acre farm in Croom. ‘‘The problem is there’s not sufficient funds to meet the desire of people who want to sell easement rights.”

The tax credit and easement program ‘‘would tend to motivate owners of large tracts of land down here not to develop,” Turner said.

Conservation easements are long-term agreements between farmers and the county or state where farmers are paid not to sell their property or develop it beyond agricultural uses.

The bills represent ‘‘an inducement from an economic standpoint” for farmers to stay in farming rather than sell their land to developers or convert it to other uses, Dernoga said.

The two bills are sponsored by Del. James E. Proctor Jr., (D-Dist. 27A) of Accokeek and Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr., (D-Dist. 27) of Chesapeake Beach. They were passed unanimously through the Prince George’s County House Delegation in late February and are awaiting approval from the full General Assembly.

The county’s agricultural land preservation program was set up in 2006 but has stalled because there were doubts whether the money originally set aside for the program could be used for it.

County residents owning 3,000 acres on 34 parcels have expressed interest in entering the program, but the county has been unable to move forward, said Yates Clagett, an official with the Prince George’s Soil Conservation District who runs agricultural preservation programs in the county. ‘‘It was a successful program. The problem is we just didn’t have the funding.”

The program was supposed to use money from the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission to purchase easements on farmland in southern Prince George’s County. But the M-NCPPC does not have explicit authority to spend money outside the metropolitan area, so the program was put on hold.

‘‘We couldn’t use that money to preserve land because some of the citizens down in the southern part of the county didn’t pay into the fund,” Clagett said.

Supporters of the proposed tax credit – which would cap assessments on qualifying land at $500 per acre – said it would help farmers make a living without hurting county revenue.

‘‘I think it’s a great option. If they can make staying on the farm a little more palatable for young guys and older guys, I think it would be advantageous,” said Chris Parker, a Clinton farmer and president of the Prince George’s County Farm Bureau.

With 1,675 acres of agricultural land that would currently qualify for the credit, the county has an additional 30,000 acres that could qualify in the future if owners entered a preservation program, supporters said.

‘‘Even if we preserve every bit of it, we’re only talking about a few thousand dollars being lost,” Clagett said.

Prince George’s County would join 12 other counties that have property tax credits available for certain agricultural land, according to a bill analysis by the Department of Legislative Services.