6 hours Ago By STAFF REPORT
PALM SPRINGS – Oswit Land Trust (OLT) has completed its second agricultural conservation easement in Imperial County, on Alphabet Farms Ranch F – consisting of roughly 4,400 acres of productive farmland. This additional easement expands OLT’s stewardship of agricultural land to over 6,300 acres, and protects this precious farmland from future development in perpetuity. This additional 4,400 acres is Oswit Land Trust’s largest conservation project to date, and brings the current total of land protected by the organization to over 10,000 acres, OLT said.
OLT’s Agricultural Conservation Easement Division had its official launch in the spring of 2024, and is working to help distribute hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to farmers in California to save and protect farmland from development and the rapid spread of urban sprawl, the nonprofit said. “We are very excited at Oswit Land Trust because we can support farming and food security, advance state agricultural, conservation, and climate goals, and provide immediate benefits to farm owners in California through agricultural conservation easements. Our farm owner partners who agree to establish easements on their property will receive a significant payment for the easement while maintaining ownership of their property in perpetuity – and while supporting the farm economy by ensuring land stays in agricultural production.
Farm owners have the flexibility in the future to pass their land down to their family, or even sell the property, while still retaining the benefit of the financial payment for the easement,” according to Jeff Faxon, Director of OLT’s ACE Division. The United States loses roughly 40 acres of farmland every hour. Eastern Riverside and Imperial Counties are specifically at extremely high risk of overdevelopment.
The agricultural conservation easements on these portions of Alphabet Farms land will help mitigate development threats and also promote the preservation of agriculture, support native wildlife, and enhance national and global food security, the OLT said. The Imperial Valley is one of the most productive agricultural areas in the U.S.
It produces high-quality forage and seed crops that feed Americans and the world, and it provides two-thirds of the winter produce which feeds the U.S. and Canada.
Protecting farms and ranches in the area will help retain jobs and local tax revenue, keeping agriculture strong in a region where one out of six jobs are supported by agriculture. Oswit Land Trust (OLT) is a 501©3 nonprofit land trust based in Palm Springs, California formed in 2021 to save one of the last unprotected Alluvial Fans in the Coachella Valley – Oswit Canyon – from being destroyed by development. OLT has since acquired six other properties including Prescott Preserve, a former golf course which is being restored to a nature preserve.
OLT has expanded its mission to include restoration, educational outreach, and protection of farmland through conservation easements, including the stewardship of 6,300 acres of productive farmland in Imperial County. With Oswit Land Trust holding these agricultural conservation easements, the land is protected from destruction and development in perpetuity..
