Agricultural land conservation: California Farmland Conservancy Program Act.

Existing law establishes the California Farmland Conservancy Program Act, to be administered generally by the Department of Conservation, and provides that it is the intent of the act to, among other things, encourage voluntary, long-term private stewardship of agricultural lands by offering landowners financial incentives, encourage local land use planning for orderly and efficient urban growth and conservation of agricultural land, and encourage improvements to enhance long-term sustainable agricultural uses. The act creates the California Farmland Conservancy Program Fund and requires moneys in the fund from gifts, donations, and federal grants, which are continuously appropriated to the department, and other moneys in the fund, upon appropriation, to be used for the purposes of the California Farmland Conservancy Program, which include, among other things, the purchase of agricultural conservation easements, fee title acquisition grants, and land improvement and planning grants. The act requires an agricultural conservation easement to be granted to any organization or entity authorized to acquire and hold conservation easements, as specified. This bill would revise and recast provisions of the California Farmland Conservancy Program Act to, among other things, expressly authorize the interest earned on those continuously appropriated moneys to be deposited into the fund, authorize the California Farmland Conservancy Program to offer financial assistance, including grants or contracts, for projects and activities on agricultural lands that support agricultural conservation and sustainable land management, expand the authorization of the department to pay direct costs associated with the acquisition of an easement or fee title, and revise requirements on the department to be fulfilled before disbursing funding under the program, as specified. To the extent the bill would continuously appropriate additional moneys or expand the purposes for which those continuously appropriated moneys may be used, the bill would make an appropriation.