Crops over Concrete: How Agricultural Conservation Easements Keep Florida Green

Each spring, Earth Day saves as an international reminder about the importance of environmental conservation, which includes preserving rural lands and promoting thoughtful growth.

Here in the UF/IFAS Food and Resource Economics Department, assistant professor and extension economist Dr. Nathan Palardy has spent the last several years developing an integrated research and extension program focused on agricultural conservation easement programs, a policy mechanism designed to do just that.

Our hosts sat down with FRE undergraduate senior Kimberly Miranda-Ramos and her honors thesis advisor Dr. Nathan Palardy to learn more about the types of programs available, the costs and benefits of enacting agricultural conservation easement programs, and the important role these programs can play as a policy tool for preserving the state's agricultural heritage while encouraging thoughtful and directed growth.

The opinions expressed by guests on this podcast are their sole responsibility do not represent positions, policies or opinion of the University of Florida, UF/IFAS, or the UF/IFAS Department of Food and Resource Economics.

Got thoughts on the episode, questions for us, or an idea for what we should cover next? Reach out to us by email at fre@ifas.ufl.edu

Intro and Outro Music - "Just Kidding" - Ahjay Stelino. Used under the Mixkit Stock Music Free License.

Transcript

00;00;08;18 - 00;00;11;15
Caleb Stair
Happy 100th birthday, FRE!

00;00;11;17 - 00;00;14;00
Alena Poulin
Wow. That's even older than you, Caleb.

00;00;14;02 - 00;00;17;06
Caleb Stair
I'm only a few years older than you, Alena, calm down.

00;00;17;13 - 00;00;22;13
Alena Poulin
Like Caleb said, I’m Alena Poulin, he is Caleb Stair, and this isFRE Lunch!

00;00;22;17 - 00;00;26;22
Caleb Stair
The official podcast of the Food and Resource Economics Department at the University of Florida.

00;00;26;24 - 00;00;31;09
Alena Poulin
This season, it's all about our greatest hits. Well, FRE’s greatest hits.

00;00;31;12 - 00;00;37;15
Caleb Stair
It's part of a broad effort to showcase all the cool things FRE has done and is doing.

00;00;37;17 - 00;00;39;16
Alena Poulin
And with that, on with the episode.

00;00;39;21 - 00;00;46;24
Caleb Stair
From Cattle to Conservation, today's episode is all about agricultural conservation easement programs.

00;00;46;27 - 00;00;55;05
Alena Poulin
That's right! Picture where our natural resources are. Rows of tomatoes, acres of timber and tons of Texas longhorns...

00;00;55;07 - 00;00;56;17
Caleb Stair
Do we have those here?

00;00;56;19 - 00;01;01;05
Alena Poulin
I don't know, but angus didn't really have the same alliteration.

00;01;01;08 - 00;01;09;27
Caleb Stair
Anyway...whatever type of place you pictured, it probably wasn't sitting on concrete. However, as more folks move to Florida, we have to find more places to put them.

00;01;09;28 - 00;01;13;27
Alena Poulin
And the catch 22 is that we still have to feed them.

00;01;14;00 - 00;01;17;24
Caleb Stair
These are the kinds of tough decisions that Florida is grappling with right now.

00;01;17;26 - 00;01;27;02
Alena Poulin
One possible path moving forward is using different programs to preserve our productive land. There are many options to do this while still growing our state.

00;01;27;04 - 00;01;33;29
Caleb Stair
The Agricultural Conservation Easement program does this with the added benefit of monetary incentives.

00;01;34;01 - 00;01;42;00
Alena Poulin
To better explain the details of these programs, we are joined by two colleagues from the Food and Resource Economics Department here at UF.

00;01;42;02 - 00;01;46;24
Caleb Stair
Our first guest is Doctor Nathan Palardy. You may remember him from our beer episode.

00;01;46;25 - 00;01;56;06
Nathan Palardy
My name is Nathan Palardy. I'm an assistant professor and state extension specialist. I specialize in state and local government with an emphasis on policy and community economic development.

00;01;56;08 - 00;02;05;29
Alena Poulin
Our other guest is Kimberly Miranda Ramos, a senior in FRE who is working with Doctor Palardy on her undergraduate honors thesis. She's also a long time listener and first time guest.

00;02;06;00 - 00;02;18;27
Kimberly Miranda-Ramos
Hi everyone! I'm Kimberly Miranda Ramos and I am a senior at the University of Florida studying food and resource economics on the international track. And I'm currently minoring in education studies as well as data analytics and applied economics.

00;02;18;28 - 00;02;29;16
Caleb Stair
Like all FRE students interested in research, Kimberly came to see me, the undergraduate honors and research coordinator who is trustworthy, all knowing, charismatic.

00;02;29;24 - 00;02;33;14
Alena Poulin
Uh, Caleb, I don't think that's exactly what happened.

00;02;33;16 - 00;02;38;27
Caleb Stair
All right. Fine. The truth is, she started out her journey in research by researching our professors.

00;02;38;27 - 00;02;56;25
Kimberly Miranda-Ramos
And so I went onto the FRE department website, and I jotted some notes down on some of the professors that aligned with my interest. And Doctor Palardy was one of the top professors. And so I just showed up at his office one day, had a chat. I vibed with him. I also asked for some recommendations from other professors.

00;02;56;25 - 00;02;59;14
Alena Poulin
And from there on out, the rest was history.

00;02;59;15 - 00;03;01;21
Caleb Stair
I thought we were an economics department.

00;03;01;23 - 00;03;18;27
Kimberly Miranda-Ramos
I started working with him in the summer of 2025, up until fall of 2025, as his research assistant. He became my honors thesis advisor. And yeah, it's been a great time researching with him and I probably would say is one of my top learning experiences in my undergraduate years.

00;03;19;01 - 00;03;28;06
Alena Poulin
With Kimberly already being interested in sustainability in agriculture and the role that local governments can play, this is a research pairing that made perfect sense.

00;03;28;08 - 00;03;48;18
Kimberly Miranda-Ramos
I mean, I've always been interested in sustainability and conservation efforts as a kid, but also like ever since, like coming to college and periodically going back home like every 3 to 4 months. I've seen increase in commercial development on ag land. And so I thought it was a great opportunity to research how development is currently affecting agricultural land in Florida.

00;03;48;20 - 00;04;05;00
Caleb Stair
After all, as an extension economist, Dr. Palardy has created a guide that provides Florida farmers and ranchers with an overview of agricultural conservation easement programs available to Florida farmers and worked closely with a variety of stakeholders on this topic.

00;04;05;02 - 00;04;25;09
Nathan Palardy
I've also spoken at land use workshops with county commissioners and the general public about easement programs and how they can help prevent the conversion of agricultural land to nonagricultural uses. And I've also spoken with landowners on how they can apply to various programs that are available. Finally, I worked directly with county governments to create their own county level agricultural conservation easement programs.

00;04;25;11 - 00;04;30;21
Alena Poulin
But let's backtrack what exactly is a conservation easement program and how do they work?

00;04;30;26 - 00;04;41;06
Nathan Palardy
An easement separates the development rights from ownership of the land. So a landowner is selling their right to, say, subdivide the property and sell it as residential development.

00;04;41;08 - 00;04;57;11
Caleb Stair
In exchange, the landowner receives compensation either in the form of a direct payment or a tax break for the land. Meanwhile, the property owner can continue to use it as long as the land remains farmland, ensuring that our rural lands can stay protected for many years to come.

00;04;57;17 - 00;05;15;26
Nathan Palardy
So the landowner continues to own and manage the property. What they are selling is just the right to develop the land. So the right to say, build a subdivision or build a commercial property, they still own the land. What they are selling is just the right to develop it beyond its current agricultural use.

00;05;15;29 - 00;05;21;00
Alena Poulin
These programs do more than just preserve our rural lands. They also encourage thoughtful growth.

00;05;21;03 - 00;05;34;03
Nathan Palardy
The primary goal is to protect agricultural land, but a secondary goal can be to channel development into areas where it is most cost effective and directed away from areas where local communities want to preserve their agriculture.

00;05;34;05 - 00;05;39;06
Caleb Stair
The prevalence of these types of programs can vary greatly depending on where you live.

00;05;39;08 - 00;05;47;19
Alena Poulin
However, in addition to federal level programs, Florida has many more localized options available at both the state and even county level.

00;05;47;21 - 00;06;07;06
Nathan Palardy
So in Florida, we are fortunate to have a lot of support at the state level for agricultural conservation. The largest agricultural conservation easement program in the state is the Rural and Family Land Protection Programs, which is run by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. To date, this program protects over 230,000 acres of working agricultural land.

00;06;07;12 - 00;06;13;19
Caleb Stair
This Rural and Family Lands Protection program was also the subject of Kimberly's undergraduate thesis.

00;06;13;22 - 00;06;33;11
Kimberly Miranda-Ramos
Yeah, so my undergrad research focuses on the Rural and Family Lands Protection program, which, as Dr. Palardy mentioned earlier, is one of Florida's primary agriculture conservation easement programs. And what I'm currently looking at are what types of land uses are currently being protected under the Rural and Family Lands Protection program.

00;06;33;13 - 00;06;44;16
Alena Poulin
Obviously, these programs don't just exist in Florida, and while there are lots of programs available, there's a lack of knowledge concerning what lands tend to be selected for the programs.

00;06;44;19 - 00;06;57;22
Kimberly Miranda-Ramos
And the reason we kind of got into this is because there is a big research gap in the literature in terms of what types of land uses conservation easement programs protect across the United States. So it's not just like a Florida thing.

00;06;57;24 - 00;07;10;28
Caleb Stair
Through this project, Kimberly and Doctor Palardy were able to identify areas where the Rural and Family Land Protection Act excels, such as in the protection of grazing land, which accounts for the largest portion of Florida ag land by acreage.

00;07;10;29 - 00;07;19;23
Nathan Palardy
So Kimberly has done an amazing job looking at this topic and really has created some of the first research that looks at the types of agricultural land that are protected by these programs.

00;07;20;01 - 00;07;28;28
Alena Poulin
They also identified key opportunities where we can develop complementary policies and strategies that can direct future conservation efforts.

00;07;29;00 - 00;07;44;15
Nathan Palardy
We also identify opportunities to develop complementary policies and strategies to target agricultural land uses that are not as prevalent in the Rural and Family Lands Protection program. This can help protect the full spectrum of agricultural land use present in the state of Florida.

00;07;44;18 - 00;07;49;16
Caleb Stair
Now, as with all research, it is rarely a smooth process.

00;07;49;18 - 00;08;23;08
Kimberly Miranda-Ramos
So one of the most challenging parts of the research process has definitely been I would say the data analysis part in the sense of like intersecting all this parcel data. So like the geospatial mapping, it was like a big issue that I ran into for a couple of weeks. And it was just like going into the library early mornings and trying to figure this out. Another issue that we ran into with the parcel data is that when we were overlapping them, we didn't want to like double count acres or like other land use types. So it was just like going back and like making sure that we had accurate information, accurate data as well.

00;08;23;11 - 00;08;30;12
Alena Poulin
Kimberly even presented this research at the Southern Regional Science Association and received some very valuable feedback.

00;08;30;15 - 00;09;08;21
Kimberly Miranda-Ramos
I know a question that came up a lot was like, why does the program tend to protect grazing land more than other land use types? And so I think like emphasizing....that changed, like the emphasis and like the introduction of my honors thesis on like the different matrices that different agriculture conservation programs use. So like some conservation easement programs will decide to protect a land use types based on a couple of characteristics, such as like soil quality or if a land use type is facing more development pressure, or like parcel size. So like emphasizing that and like making that clear in my my honors thesis.

00;09;08;23 - 00;09;19;12
Caleb Stair
Now why does Florida in particular need these programs. Are there challenges or threats that rural lands are facing that is somewhat driving the development of these programs?

00;09;19;14 - 00;09;40;15
Nathan Palardy
So that's a really good question. Rural lands throughout the southeast and in Florida especially, are facing an incredible amount of development pressure, especially those located adjacent to expanding urban and suburban areas. State and local governments are pursuing strategies to manage growth in a way that promotes economic development without trading rural identity or sacrificing that agricultural sector of their economy.

00;09;40;17 - 00;09;54;03
Caleb Stair
Now, while easements are one way to protect agricultural land from development as economist, one thing we are always concerned about is weighing the potential costs and benefits of any policy decision made.

00;09;54;05 - 00;10;29;20
Nathan Palardy
So that's a really important question to answer. One of the key benefits of these programs, from a public policy perspective, is that because the land remains in private ownership, it stays on tax rolls and does not cost taxpayers anything for the maintenance or upkeep of these properties. Additionally, because the land continues to be productive in agriculture, it remains a source of jobs and contributes to the local economy. The only major cost to the public is the initial acquisition of the easement, which, because it is less than fee, meaning you're not actually acquiring the property, you're only acquiring the development rights. It's far cheaper than an outright purchase of the land.

00;10;29;21 - 00;10;38;29
Alena Poulin
Another benefit of these types of programs is that by keeping the land in agriculture and the costs of management low, it remains revenue positive for the county.

00;10;39;01 - 00;11;01;23
Nathan Palardy
So in terms of public benefits, agricultural land is revenue positive, while residential land is revenue negative on average for county government. What that means is that agricultural land generates more in tax revenue for county governments than it costs, in terms of providing services such as roads, utilities, sewage, all of these services that county governments provide.

00;11;01;25 - 00;11;13;17
Caleb Stair
Being revenue positive is what you could call a direct benefit. This means tangible, immediate and measurable positive outcomes from an action. In this case, it's cheaper.

00;11;13;20 - 00;11;20;16
Alena Poulin
Another important consideration is the hidden benefits that a policy decision might have that could be less obvious.

00;11;20;18 - 00;11;22;06
Caleb Stair
Isn't that what hidden means?

00;11;22;13 - 00;11;55;05
Nathan Palardy
Additionally, agricultural conservation easements can help maintain a viable agricultural economy that supports local jobs, businesses, and food systems by making sure that a critical mass of land remains in agricultural production. And this can have local multiplier effects. Agricultural land also provides services that improve quality of life that would be difficult or expensive to replace. This includes flood mitigation, open space, improving air quality. Finally, easements can help preserve the agricultural heritage of communities by ensuring that land in the community stays in agriculture.

00;11;55;08 - 00;12;13;13
Caleb Stair
So for a lot of individuals who are listening to this right now, this may be the first time they have heard about a conservation easement program. For our listeners, let's say if they listen to this podcast for roughly the last 15 minutes, what is that one big key takeaway you would want to leave them with?

00;12;13;15 - 00;12;33;22
Nathan Palardy
I would say that agricultural land is a scarce resource, and once it is converted to nonagricultural uses, it almost never returns to agriculture. That is why it is critical to keep working land in agriculture, and agricultural conservation easements should be part of state and local governments comprehensive strategy for protecting and conserving agricultural land.

00;12;33;24 - 00;12;44;07
Alena Poulin
So to conclude. As populations grow, the demand for land increases and the decisions being made by state and local government are critical to what our landscape will look like in the future.

00;12;44;08 - 00;12;54;09
Caleb Stair
For our listeners, the next time you have a long drive ahead of you, just like Kimberly, perhaps you might consider the landscape around you and how it has changed over time.

00;12;54;12 - 00;13;01;23
Alena Poulin
And for our students specifically, Kimberly also had some great advice for anyone thinking about getting into undergraduate research.

00;13;01;25 - 00;13;35;15
Kimberly Miranda-Ramos
Yeah, so one of the pieces of advice I have is to... really big emphasis on like who you choose your advisor to be. If you're interested in research, it could be pretty taxing sometimes in terms of time, it's a great time commitment. And so having an advisor that understands that you're involved in other things that you are also taking a bunch of exams that classes are still... they still exist. And like you still have a personal life as well. You want an advisor that understands that and is patient and actually works and communicates with you. So big emphasis on picking the right advisor.

00;13;35;17 - 00;13;47;02
Caleb Stair
While these research projects can be a lot of work. They also serve as a great opportunity for our students to explore career paths available to them after graduation, either in academia or industry.

00;13;47;04 - 00;14;05;06
Kimberly Miranda-Ramos
Firstly, I knew I was interested in research, like just based off like this data analysis course I took and like the projects we did in there. We did a bunch of data analysis and like wrote those reports. I realized that's why I was interested in research and so like doing research with Dr. Palardy, I was like, okay, like this is set. Like I definitely want to go into like government work where I can do research.

00;14;05;11 - 00;14;15;21
Caleb Stair
Another side benefit of our podcast is that it affords students an opportunity to distribute their research more broadly than just as a thesis or a publication.

00;14;15;27 - 00;14;22;07
Alena Poulin
It also gives them practice communicating with a non economist audience about these important issues that affect us all.

00;14;22;07 - 00;14;28;18
Caleb Stair
We hope you enjoy learning about student research like Kimberly's as much as we enjoy having the opportunity to share it.

00;14;28;21 - 00;14;40;04
Alena Poulin
And for those of you interested in learning more about any of the topics discussed today or the opportunities for undergraduate research available through the FRE department, we will include links in the episode description below.

00;14;40;06 - 00;14;54;00
Caleb Stair
If you've made it this far, you've finished the entire episode and we thank you for that. Tune in next time for more food for thought. Thanks again for joining us on this episode of FRE Lunch. We hope you'll come back again for seconds.