Final report for SPDP22-13
Project Information
The Rural Land Summit (RLS) professional development program produces and delivers original content to address matters related to farm and forest land use. The overall goal is to reduce the risk of land removal from production. Prong One is a professional credit series - assisted by NC State University Office of Continuing Education - for lawyers and others across North Carolina, with the objective to build a network of legal professionals with an identified interest in serving farmers and rural landowners. Prong Two builds the capacity of front-line contacts - cooperative extension, soil & water, etc. - to serve rural landowners and farmers and forest land managers with guidance to resources and professional assistance on land use matters. The project produces a book - The North Carolina Rural Lands Guide (RLG) - targeted to assist rural landowners and operators with legal education on land use. Supporting the RLG is a suite of 1) interview-based videos on sundry legal topics, 2) professional-grade white papers, 3) lay narratives published on two websites - NC Farm Law (farmlaw.ces.ncsu.edu) and NC Farm Planning Portal (in development), and 4) supporting presentations. Collaborators will assist in participant recruitment and content delivery. The topic of “land use” serves landowners and land owner/operators on a range of topics of normal concern, such as heir property resolution, property taxes, zoning and building, and environmental matters such as pesticide use, conservation program practices, leasing and farm tenancies, drainage management, access and easements (including utilities), and basic forest management and marketing.
The overall goal of the project is to build a network of professional assistance and produce extensive subject matter content on the critical land use and production topics faced by all producers and owners of farm and forest land. This goal will be achieved by the following objectives:
- Development of a Professional Credit Series (Continuing Legal Education [CLE]). This project will pilot and establish a recurring series of CLE's to update those practitioners in closest contact to production agriculture - both in rural and exurban areas - on land use matters critical to production agriculture. Topics will include those produced as part of the overall content development supported by this grant (see #3 below). Evaluations of participant experience and follow-up for client-permitted examples of professional assistance will be sought from participants of the program to document increased farmer service (behavior change). Such data will be considered in developing and expanding each annual round of CLE programs (scheduled for delivery in late spring of each year).
- Rural Land Summits. Produced to ultimately expose a broader audience of farm landholders to this information to professional service capacity. This format targets those who work with farmers and rural landowners (producers and non-producers): Cooperative Extension agents (both 1890 and 1862, which are co-branded through a singular Extension network), NC Soil & Water conservationists, Division of Forestry foresters, community economic development personnel, local community food advocates, and others for enhanced response to queries on land use and related legal matters and efficient direction to available resources and professionals working in that service sphere. Evaluations of participant experience and follow-up for client-permitted examples of assistance will be sought from participants of the program, to evaluate behavior change in access to resources.
- Farm Law Content Development. 1) NC Cooperative Extension (NCCE) Fact Sheets. Fact sheets will be written to target a general audience and will be peer reviewed prior to publication. NCCE Fact Sheets are professionally edited by NCCE Ag Communications editorial staff prior to online and/or print publication; 2) White Papers (peer reviewed). White papers will be published that mirror NCCE Fact Sheets topics but will include citations and references, and retain more narrative detail. The target audience for these white papers is educators and professional advisors that seek to resolve problems related to the topic for clients; 3) Slide Presentations. An explanatory presentation in PowerPoint for delivery to live and online audiences (with a recorded narration linked to appropriate web portals below); 4) Infographics. At least 60% of the topics covered by NCCE Fact Sheets will be addressed in an infographic format, framing the issues and resolutions associated with the topic; 5) Interview-based informational videos with selected professional experts and administrators. Each NCCE Fact Sheet will be accompanied by a companion video on the topic (or multiple depending on sub-topic). For example, a short video on Present Use Value (the property tax program for farming and forestry) will consist of interviews with county tax assessors who administer the program, who can discuss the programs main points as well as address scenarios and tips beneficial to farm and forest landowners, with a focus on transfer and appropriate farm use at the small and mid farm level. Farmer participation in interviews will be included. 6)Web Pages. NCCE has devoted considerable resources and expertise to the development of accessible web content that is mobile device friendly. Content produced by this project will be hosted among several websites managed by project staff, including: The Agricultural and Natural Resource Law (Farm Law) (farmlaw.ces.ncsu.edu) provides narratives and resources related to legal topics of concern in farm business operations, land ownership, transfer and management, as well as natural resource regulation topics of concern to farmers and landowners; b) Farm Planning Resources. (currently under construction) This portal is a direct result from a 2020 request from County Agents at a statewide meeting for topics including Getting Started, Land and Water, Business Planning, Taxes, Insurance and Liability, Regulations, Certifications, Marketing, and Support. Behavior change is objectively measured by access to websites (metrics provided by NCSU Extension IT).
- The Rural Lands Guide. The capstone product of the grant, this publication will contain the printed content developed during the course of the project. This book will be printed and distributed at future Rural Land Summits where landowners and farmers are the primary audience (i.e. beyond the train-the-trainer series). Behavior change: participant access to publication (to be evaluated in future workshops)
Cooperators
- - Technical Advisor
- - Technical Advisor
- - Technical Advisor
Education
The educational approach for this project was straight forward: utilize non-campus teaching time to research and develop materials that were being requested of PI through his work across North Carolina in the realm of land use law. The topics proposed matched those developed, including information on taxes, conservation, succession planning, etc. The approach of partnering with other organizers was far more efficient than the PI attempting to organize and coordinate stand alone meetings, which would have reached far fewer people and would have failed to leverage the resources of other partners, particularly those within PI's Cooperative Extension network (in short, they did the logistics, PI focused on content development and content delivery). While only metrics of outreach to professional service providers are included in this report, during the time of the project the materials were adaptable to educate large numbers of farmers and landowners on the topics identified above. This project was responsive rather than prescriptive.
Education & Outreach Initiatives
Educate rural landowners and farmers in a given county on mundane aspects of land ownership in order to bring them to an educational event; such topics include property taxes, conservation programs, bona fide farm zoning exemptions, utility right of way maintenance, etc.
The goal of the Land Summit is to educate rural landowners and farmers in a given county on mundane aspects of land ownership in order to bring them to an educational event. The theory behind the programming is that stand alone meetings on specific production topics fail to address land ownership and management topics. Such topics include property taxes, conservation programs, bona fide farm zoning exemptions, utility right of way maintenance, etc. The model of the program is to utilize the officials in a given county that administer programs, such as property taxes and zoning. For other topics, other private partners may be brought in to discuss conservation funding, as well as Extension specialists to discuss matters of estate planning and other beneficial programs. The idea is to connect landowners and farmers with service providers.
The idea is to connect landowners and farmers with service providers. As connected, special problems such as qualifying for deferred tax treatment on agricultural land can be more easily accomplished with direct connection to the person at the tax office who handles that. Likewise with farm exemption qualification from zoning by knowing who handles those matters in the county planning office. As for cooperative extension materials, the Land Summit program introduces landowners and farmers to issues they might not be aware of, and provides them with information on how to access materials concerning such matters (ie. materials produced by PI pursuant to this Land Summit Professional Development project.)
Educational & Outreach Activities
Participation summary:
Learning Outcomes
Project Outcomes
This project ranged from June 2022 to June 2025 and produced written materials with the support of farmer service professionals, as well as presentation materials for professional credit programs of which PI Branan was an invited participant or organizer. The diversity of topics are included in the report above, including materials on use and conservation of private lands with subjects including farm succession, conservation easements, renewable energy siting, sales taxes, business organizations and licensing requirements, grave site maintenance, forest landowner liability, water and drainage law, heirs property, etc.
The project supported content to the NC Cooperative Extension portal Farm Law and Tax for Producers and Landowners, which over the course of the grant received in excess of 200,000 site visits to access materials.
During the course of the grant (June 2022 to June 2025), the activity supported by the grant reached approximately 1990 professional service stakeholders (non-farmer/landowners) with presentations at professional credit meetings and conferences, including continuing legal education conferences, appraiser meetings and conferences, planners, landscapers, consulting foresters, etc. Though a PDP project targeted to non-farmer/landowners, the materials nonetheless supported presentations reaching approximately 3471 farmers and landowners during this time. The alternative delivery of the content developed by this grant served a far wider audience than originally contemplated with stand alone continuing legal education events, which proved impractical in the face of invitations to join in organizing wider events, allowing PI to focus his time on content development and delivery rather than event organizing and logistics.
(Note that the numbers reported above do not include farmers and ranchers, but only professional service providers including appraisers, lawyers, consulting foresters, tax advisers, cooperative extension agents, soil and water conservation staff, non-profit sustainable agriculture service providers (e.g. Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project, etc.), and land trust professionals)
As best as possible, PI Branan worked with a variety of collaborators to deliver a variety of content concerting land use of rural lands. Though funds were limited to serving professional providers, such activities supported development of materials for landowners on a variety of topics. And though the project did not sponsor events targeted directly to landowners/farmers, the Land Summit model contemplated by the grant (not claimed as deliverable) was delivered in several North Carolina counties during the course of the grant, and has become an established method of delivering land use information to rural landowners and producers.
In addition, the project will continue to produce materials that remain in draft but are still being finalized including Fact sheets on water law, conservation easements, and various elements of farm succession planning.
The alternative delivery of the content developed by this grant served a far wider audience than originally contemplated with stand alone continuing legal education events, which proved impractical in the face of invitations to join in organizing wider events, allowing PI to focus his time on content development and delivery rather than event organizing and logistics.
The continuing study of the role of conservation easements as critical infrastructure for food production should be the subject of further research.
Information Products
- Hallowed Ground - A Brief on Access and Maintenance Rights to Grave Sites on Private Land
- Neighbor Complaints: The Basics of North Carolina's Right to Farm and Bona Fide Farm Zoning
- Sales Tax: Exemptions for Farm Product Sales
- Conservation Easements and Agreements: Obligations, Modification and Termination
- The Bona Fide Farm Exemption: Connecting the Dots
- Conservation Easements: Valuation, Modification, and Sample Federal and State Case Law Concerning Deductions and Enforcement
- Sales Taxes: Exemptions on Farm Product Sales
- 2024 Land Use Update: Wetlands
- Water Law: Riparian Rights and Drainage
- 2025 Land Use Law Update
- The Flexible Architecture of Farm Succession: Disposition, Management and Options
- Conservation Easements and Farm Succession (Parts I, II, and III)
- Heirs Property Resolution (a limited view from [former] private practice)