Hawkinsville, GA |
Since 1985, Georgia has lost at least one and a half million acres of working and wild lands to development — and that pressure isn’t slowing down. For farming families who have worked the same ground for generations, the threat of losing that land for good is very real. According to Katherine Moore, President of the Georgia Conservancy, the stakes for Georgia’s agricultural economy couldn’t be higher.
“The predominant landscape in our state is, in fact, working lands. We have over twenty-two million acres in forestry and about ten million acres in working farms — that is by far the bulk of our state’s land,” Moore said. “Our working lands are the factory floor. If we do not have these acres protected and operated by good stewards, then we’re not going to have the products and the jobs that those working lands produce.”
In 2023, the Georgia General Assembly responded with the Georgia Farmland Conservation Program — a first-of-its-kind initiative in the state dedicated solely to keeping farmland in farming. At the heart of the program is a legal tool called a conservation easement, and for landowners thinking about how to protect their property long-term, Moore says it’s one of the most powerful options available.
“A conservation easement is a simple legal agreement that allows the property owner to continue to see their land in their ownership, their enjoyment and use — be it simple recreation or as a working landscape — but they are giving up some of the development rights,” Moore explained. “Those rights are given up in perpetuity. The conservation easement is attached to the deed, and the property owner has the comfort of knowing the land is always protected from certain types of development.”
In perpetuity — a phrase that carries significant weight for farming families. Moore says that permanence is exactly the point. Georgia has lost too much ground to development that can never be undone, and the program gives conservation-minded landowners a way to make that commitment binding — not just for themselves, but for every generation that follows.
“A conservation easement gives a lot of property owners who are focused on the legacy of the land — on protecting it from future development pressures — that peace of mind to know that the acres they have cared for, some of them for generations before them, have a future as a working or natural land versus being under threat of development,” Moore said.
The program doesn’t just ask landowners to give something up — it rewards them for it. Participating landowners can receive a one-time payment for the development rights they permanently surrender, making the decision both a legacy choice and a meaningful financial one.
“The landowner walks away at the end of a transaction like this with the comfort that they have protected their land forever, to continue in the use that they have enjoyed and prospered from as a family — and also they have been provided with financial compensation for the value of the rights they have given up,” Moore said.
For Georgia farming families looking to protect their land for future generations, the Georgia Farmland Conservation Program offers a path forward. More information is available at the Georgia Department of Agriculture’s website.