Agricultural resources: grants.

The California Farmland Conservancy Program Act establishes a program for grants, for the acquisition of agricultural conservation easements or fee title, from the Department of Conservation. The act imposes requirements for the funding of agricultural conservation easements. The act creates the California Farmland Conservancy Program Fund. The moneys in the fund, upon appropriation, are required to be used for the purposes of the program, including the purchase of agricultural conservation easements. The act requires an applicant for an agricultural conservation easement to meet specified eligibility criteria related to commercial agricultural production and agricultural land conservation, and specifies criteria the Director of Conservation is required to consider in evaluating the proposal. This bill, notwithstanding any other provision of the act, would authorize the Director of Conservation to make grants from a source other than the fund, and, upon appropriation by the Legislature from that source, disburse moneys for those grants to an applicant for the acquisition of an agricultural conservation easement, if the director determines that the grant meets the purposes of the act and additional specified requirements, including that the easement does not, and will not, substantially prevent agricultural uses on the easement property and that any restriction on the current or reasonably foreseeable agricultural use of the easement property would only be imposed to restrict those areas of the property that are not in cultivation. Existing law also establishes the Soil Conservation Fund, which provides money, upon appropriation by the Legislature, for specified land use purposes. This bill would establish the Farm, Ranch, and Watershed Account within the Soil and Conservation Fund from which money would be disbursed to provide the above grants.