Reaching out to absentee landowners

Excerpt

The Center for Absentee Landowners has been established to work with the vast numbers of absentee landowners who own agricultural property in the United States. The goal is to make the landowners aware of conservation programs that may be appropriate and beneficial to their land.

Agricultural land is increasingly owned by people who don't operate it. In fact, approximately 42% of ag land in this country is owned by one of these “absentee landowners.” Absentee landowners include retired farmers who have moved from the land and lease it to others, people who inherit the land, and people who live elsewhere and buy agricultural land for recreational or investment purposes.

Absentee landowners lag behind owner-operators in enrollment in both the Conservation Reserve Program and the Wetlands Reserve Program. Several barriers inhibit the implementation of conservation practices on land owned by absentee landowners:

• Absentee landowners often rely extensively on the operator to identify and address natural resource concerns.

• Direct communication between conservation agency staff and absentee landowners is often absent, resulting in a lack of information, untimely information, or misinformation.

• Extra time is required by agency staff to work with more than one decision …