Soil & Water outlines Farmland Protection Reserve Fund plan as county seeks clarity on original intent

Corey Nellis, Montgomery County Soil & Water conservation representative, presented the agency’s 2025 annual report and a draft program for the county’s Farmland Protection Reserve Fund, saying a $250,000 allocation would be used to support local agriculture through competitive cost-share grants, conservation practices and technical assistance.

Nellis described several recent funding streams that benefited local farms — “$102,000 in CRF, $303,185,000 for our CAPO program, $1,400,000 in federal funds through the EQIP program and $570,000 through round 30” — and highlighted local projects such as manure-storage construction, hydroseeding for public sites and a county tire-recycling program that he said removed roughly $22,000 worth of tires from farms last year. “When we bring this money into the county … we’re getting local contractors, local employees,” he said.

The core of the discussion revolved around how the $250,000 should function. Several legislators said they understood the money to be a revolving incentive — a clawback or replenishing fund aimed at dissuading farmers from selling land for solar development — while Nellis and subsequent presenters said the resolution language was framed broadly to “support local agriculture, the viability and profitability of agriculture” and that Soil & Water could administer programmatic distributions but cannot guarantee a self-replenishing loan fund without broader clawback participation by town assessors.

“Part of the conversation was: how do we make sure those folks who keep their farms and don’t sell to solar have the same opportunity?” Nellis said, adding that clawbacks are governed by longstanding state rules and that local assessors would need to participate for a true clawback mechanism to function. County staff later said the county has met with town supervisors and assessors to discuss clawback procedures, and that some towns have already recovered revenue through clawbacks, though participation is uneven.

Victoria Bray, the county’s newly hired ag economic development specialist, described program details the office has drafted: competitive cost-share grants for marketing and value-added production, on-farm implementation projects to increase income per acre, and outreach to expand market access (including support for farmers markets and an app that links consumers directly to farms). “The program is all about keeping farms working, families farming, and agriculture economically viable in Montgomery County,” Bray said.

Legislators pressed for specifics about eligibility, the mechanics of clawbacks, and whether funds would be restricted to preventing solar conversions. Nellis said the resolution’s language supports protecting agricultural land and that Soil & Water would propose detailed program guidelines if the legislature directed how the money should be used. Several members asked for the draft program and for a clearer explanation of how much revenue, if any, could realistically come back through clawbacks or increased tax assessments on converted parcels.

Next steps: staff and Soil & Water will provide a more-detailed program outline and legal/administrative options for a revolving-clawback mechanism ahead of the legislature’s March consideration of the fund.