We deliver conservation solutions so agricultural producers can protect natural resources and feed a growing world.
The Agricultural Land Easements (ALE) program aims to support private and tribal landowners, land trusts, and governmental entities in protecting croplands and grasslands on working farms and ranches from non-agricultural uses through conservation easements. This initiative focuses on safeguarding the nation's food supply by preventing the conversion of productive lands to non-agricultural purposes while also delivering public benefits such as environmental quality, historic preservation, wildlife habitat, and the protection of open spaces. By leveraging local partnerships to match funding, ALE emphasizes long-term stewardship of easements, offering financial assistance to eligible partners to purchase easements that ensure agricultural use and conservation values of the land. The program commits up to 50 percent of the fair market value of the easement for agricultural land and up to 75 percent for grasslands of special environmental significance, aiming to keep lands in agriculture and protect grazing uses and related conservation values.
NRCS will give priority to applications that emphasize the preservation of agricultural activities and the associated conservation benefits of the land. Preference will also be given to projects that focus on safeguarding large, uninterrupted spaces of land used for farming or ranching purposes.