By working with you to protect your farm with an easement, we are committed to your farm and farmland for the long haul.
If you own farmland protected by Maine Farmland Trust, you are a member of MFT’s Farm Network and likely know us well! If you have purchased farmland that is already protected with an MFT easement, our Farmland Stewards can help you interpret the terms of the easement and steward your farm for the next chapter. Generally, our easements restrict development to protect the land for farming, as well as forestry, nature, and/or recreation.
Every year, our Farmland Stewards visit all of our easements to connect with you, answer your questions, and to document any important changes. Often agricultural easements require landowners to get our approval before making a change, such as conducting a commercial timber harvest or building a new barn. During the annual visit and throughout the year your Farmland Steward is also available to help connect you with technical support, farm business resources, or other services.
Not sure who to contact? Download a map of our stewards' monitoring regions.
Stewardship Program Manager
hchamberlain@mainefarmlandtrust.org
Land Steward
glinck@mainefarmlandtrust.org
Land Steward
emccarthy@mainefarmlandtrust.org
Land Steward
mheuss@mainefarmlandtrust.org
Land Steward
rhackett@mainefarmlandtrust.org
Most agricultural easements require that landowners contact MFT prior to conducting certain activities on their land. Each conservation easement is different, so landowners should always review the relevant sections of their easement to see what responsibilities they have prior to beginning a new project.
Here are a few examples of when to contact a steward:
Please send a written request via email or snail mail. Your request should include the type of project, a detailed description of the project, a description of how the change will impact your farm, and your projected timeline. If you need a hand putting your request together, your Farmland Steward will be happy to help with a phone call, in-person meeting, or by providing an example request form/template.
We will respond to your request within 30 days of receipt. In practice, we usually respond much more quickly, but it's important to think ahead for time-sensitive projects.
Your Farmland Steward will contact you before the visit to coordinate on the timing of the monitoring visit, and hopefully find a time to meet with you directly. If you aren't available to meet or walk the property, your Steward will check in about the condition of the property over the phone or via email. On the day of the visit, your steward will walk a good portion of the property to ensure that the terms of the easement are being met. The areas visited will depend on the specific easement terms, but generally we will want to see:
Your Farmland Steward will document changes with photographs and GPS data. All notes will be documented in a monitoring report that will be mailed to you for your records.
Some years, we contract with a company to take aerial photographs of large landholdings, farms that are currently fallow, and largely wooded properties. If your property is included in our aerial monitoring, your Farmland Steward will reach out after viewing the photo to touch base on any changes. Plus, you'll get a really cool up-to-date photo of your farm!
Ideally, yes! The annual visit is an excellent opportunity for Farmland Stewards to answer a landowner’s questions about their conservation easement in person, learn about different projects that are planned for the property, and hear about any other support needs. If you are unable to walk the property with your steward at the monitoring visit, other options include talking with the steward and then allowing them to walk the property on their own, or catching up with your steward on the phone to update them on recent projects that are happening on your property. If you are physically unable to walk your property, it is also common for landowners and stewards to drive to different parts of the property together in a truck or other off-road vehicle.
While MFT easements limit non-agricultural development, some structures are allowed. Many of our easements include a building area (such as a Farmstead Area or Agricultural Structures Area) where new agricultural buildings can be constructed. New structures outside of the building areas or new residential structures often require approval and may be more restricted. Please reach out to us to discuss the options provided by your conservation easement.
Traditionally, woodlot management and firewood harvesting has been an important part of life on a Maine farm. Our easements often reflect that reality and allow for small-scale harvesting for personal use.
If you are contemplating a commercial or large-scale timber harvest, your easement will likely require that you get a Forest Management Plan and/or approval from MFT. Your Farmland Steward can connect you with your local District Forester to help you find a great forester and get the best outcome - be it sustained income, wildlife habitat, or improved stand health - from a timber harvest.
If you are unsure about whether the scale of a planned harvest will require a Forest Management Plan, it's best to reach out early; timber harvests without the proper documentation are our most common source of easement violations.
Most of the time, our easements do not restrict the type of agriculture or agricultural practices you can use on your land. Our easements define agricultural activities as the raising, keeping, production, and harvest of crops, livestock, and livestock products, together with the processing, storage or on-farm marketing of those crops and livestock products. Our easements do not require that you actively farm the land; you could lease the arable land to another farmer or leave it fallow. However, at a minimum most easements require that fields are kept open so that they can be returned to active production easily in the future.
As the landowner, you have the right to sell the property. Most of our easements require that you give MFT notice of your intent to sell. This helps ensure that MFT can be in touch with the new landowner to make sure they understand the terms of the easement. Your realtor should also make sure that reference to the conservation easement is included in the transfer deed just like any other easement or other encumbrance.
If your easement includes an Option to Purchase at Agricultural Value (OPAV), there will be more restrictions on the sale of the property. Please reach out to your Farmland Steward early in the process so we can ensure that the OPAV is considered during the transaction.
In most of MFT's easements, the landowner retains the right to decide who has access to the land. In a few cases, usually when public funding contributed to the easement purchase, the easement allows limited public access rights. These rights may include access to a narrow trail corridor, existing snowmobile trail, or for traditional activities like hunting and fishing. If your easement includes these conditions, you can ask your Farmland Steward to review them with you in more depth.
MFT is bound to uphold the terms of the agricultural conservation easement. Sometimes activities that are not permitted by the terms of the easement take place. When a violation does occur, whether by you, a neighbor, or another third party, MFT works with the landowner to find an appropriate resolution. If MFT and a landowner are not able to come to a resolution together, MFT may need to pursue legal action in order to properly enforce the easement.
We are here to support all of the farms in our Farm Network community, at every stage of your farming journey. We are only a phone call or email away and look forward to working in partnership with you.
