Well-managed farmlands provide habitat for animals like migratory birds, elk, and salmon. These lands also reduce air pollution, filter freshwater, and reduce urban heat islands. Farmlands power a vibrant economy that provides high-quality local food and career options to Puget Sound communities. When these lands are converted to buildings, roads, or other developments, we risk losing the benefits farmlands can provide for us. By supporting the protection and viability of farmlands in Puget Sound, we can help farmers stay farming while withstanding pressure to convert these lands to more developed uses that degrade habitat.
Success looks like reducing the conversion of farmlands and increasing the protection of farmlands through smart and well-enforced land use planning. Farmers benefit from technical assistance and succession planning programs, business guidance, incentives to make environmentally friendly choices, and programs that permanently protect farmland from development.
We evaluate trends in agricultural land protection by measuring farmland protected through conservation easements across Puget Sound. Accelerating the rate of farmland protection is consistent with our ecosystem recovery goals.
The Farmland Protection Progress Indicator
- measures the amount of farmland acres permanently protected by conservation easements,
- provides detail on what zoning categories protected farmland are located within, and
- provides detail on where protected farmland is located relative to urban areas.
This indicator displays change at the Puget Sound region-scale and the county-scale. We are also developing a metric to measure progress slowing the conversion of farmland to more developed uses.
Select the Progress Indicator in the table below to learn more.
Progress Indicators
| TOPIC PROGRESS INDICATOR | INDICATOR PROGRESS | TARGET STATUS |
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| TOPIC PROGRESS INDICATOR | INDICATOR PROGRESS | TARGET STATUS |
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Key Results
The amount of farmland that has been protected is substantial, but protection rates have slowed since 2014.
- 55,364 acres of farmland have been protected with conservation easements across all years. 14,462 acres (26 percent of the total) were protected between 2014 through 2023.
- In 2022 through 2023, the region protected 811 fewer acres of farmland through easements than the previous reporting period (2020-2021).
- While conservation easements restrict development, they do not ensure that the land will remain actively farmed. It is important to support services that help farms stay profitable in addition to programs that enroll farmlands in protective easements.
- Despite protection efforts, the USDA Agricultural Census shows that roughly 36,800 acres of farmland were lost in Puget Sound counties between 2012 and 2022 [1].
This indicator provides the recovery community with a summary of protection trends in farmlands over roughly the past decade. However, this indicator does not currently illustrate the social and economic factors that drive both farmland protection and loss. For example, some farmers may be nearing retirement with nobody in line to take over their business. Other farmers may struggle to farm productively with current water rights or challenging weather and climate events. Without assistance, farmers in these scenarios may have no other choice but to sell their land to developers.
This indicator also does not illustrate the intersection of habitat conservation, habitat restoration, and farming. In other words, we cannot yet explore how habitat restoration interacts with or limits farming.
Future work will explore these gaps to help improve our understanding of the factors impacting farmers in Puget Sound.
What factors affect this Progress Indicator?
Funding, staffing, and awareness of land conservation programs can affect how conservation easements are applied to farmlands.
- Land conservation programs may be limited by funding and staffing to enact conservation easements and local landowners may not be aware of opportunities for land protection.
What other actions can we take?
- Cities and counties can review farmlands and consider whether they meet agricultural designation criteria identified in RCW 36.70A.170. Appropriate land use designations can help protect farmland.
- Farmland preservation programs should continue or expand technical assistance programs to support succession planning and the effective transfer of farmland to the next generation of farmers.
- Land trusts and other partners should explore ways to ensure that conservation easement agreements are supportive of landowner goals.
- Cities, counties, and regional councils should intentionally plan for agricultural and food system infrastructure to ensure farmers have access to services to process, distribute, and sell agricultural products.
- Regional and local partners should implement conservation-focused water use principles and long-range water supply plans (accounting for climate change) to maintain water availability for both wildlife and agricultural needs.
- Cities and counties can expand current use tax assessment and transfer and removal of development rights programs which incentivize farming and further protect land from conversion.
Please also visit the Action Agenda strategy dedicated to Working Lands for more information.
1. United States Department of Agriculture (2012, 2022). Census of Agriculture, National Agricultural Statistics Service, United States Department of Agriculture. Numbers sourced from Washington, County Data, Table 8, land in farms (acres); accessed via https://www.nass.usda.gov/AgCensus/.