How does land ownership affect decisions about land use and, ultimately, its sustainability? What can be done to encourage land owners and their tenants to seek out and choose more sustainable options? A new two-year jointly funded program – the Iowa Landowner and Sustainable Agricultural Land Stewardship project – unites the Leopold Center and the Agricultural Law Center at Drake University in seeking answers to these questions.

“Many of Iowa’s key land use decisions are not necessarily being made by producers living on their farms,” said Leopold Center director Jerry DeWitt. “We have absentee landlords, tenant farmers, or joint owners in one family making choices about production, land maintenance and conservation. We wanted better information about how to help them make the best determinations that will sustain their land for the future.”

Recent data confirm that more than half of Iowa is farmed under some form of a lease. This project will explore trends in Iowa farmland ownership and the transition of land to a new generation of owners, many of whom will rent or lease farmland to others.

“We’re interested in studying current farm lease agreements and hope to provide information for landowners about how leases can be used to promote conservation and sustainable agriculture,” said Neil Hamilton, director of Drake’s Agricultural Law Center. “With the increase in the number of absentee landowners, communicating conservation goals can be a real challenge.”

A second trend the study will examine is the proliferation of other legal agreements impacting farmland, such as wind right leases, manure contracts and conservation easements. “As owners enter additional legal agreements on their land, understanding how the agreements may affect future owners or how the land is managed becomes more complicated,” Hamilton said.

Drake will use the project’s findings to draft a model sustainable agricultural leasing guide. It will explore the impact of traditional farm leasing agreements and practices on agricultural sustainability and land stewardship and offer alternative provisions and practices.

As part of the project, Drake will add a fellow position in the Agricultural Law Center. This new staff attorney will conduct research, inventory and survey land tenure legal agreements and practices, interview landowners and advisers, develop survey tools, and collect and analyze legal agreements. This summer the Ag Law Center has chosen several law students to serve as summer interns to work on different aspects of land tenure and conservation issues.

Land use documentary filmed

During May the Ag Law Center made significant progress on a Drake-funded component of the project creating an educational documentary titled “The Land Remains.” Filming was conducted at more than a dozen farms and locations around the state and interviews were taped with Jerry DeWitt and Iowa State economics professor Mike Duffy, among others.

The Drake center plans to develop several versions of the show, including a shorter version for possible screening and a longer educational version with supporting curriculum materials. The first version of the program is scheduled to be completed by September.

Earlier this year, an Ag Law Center researcher conducted a study to identify and inventory any model agricultural leases used by the legal communities in Iowa and neighboring states, with particular focus on lease provisions relating to soil conservation, good husbandry, and related environmental issues.

Historical focus by Duffy

In addition to the Drake project research and outreach, the Policy Initiative has provided a modest amount of funding to Duffy, who directs the Iowa State University Beginning Farmer Center, to consider other aspects of land ownership and tenure in the United States. He will look at what the future might hold and what changes in land ownership mean for beginning farmers and sustainable agriculture.

Duffy is conducting his historical research as part of an ISU faculty sabbatical and has traveled to New England and Mississippi, and possibly may visit Idaho and California. His work is being coordinated with the project at Drake University.