Sự kết hợp giữa nguồn vốn công và tư để bảo vệ đất nông nghiệp ở Marin

Bởi Lily Verdone, Giám đốc điều hành

20 Tháng Năm, 2026

Protecting farms and ranches in Marin requires the power of partnerships. While the partnership between MALT and farmers and ranchers is always front and center, there is another partnership equally essential to our work: how we leverage public funds to protect land. Without public funds, we wouldn’t be able to protect working lands at the scale and pace Marin needs.

Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at how public-private funding partnerships make farmland conservation possible.

What Goes Into Protecting a Farm Forever

Since our first easement closed in 1983, MALT has permanently protected 98 farms and ranches — nearly 59,000 acres, over half of all privately-owned agricultural land in Marin County. That represents $112 million in agricultural land value, permanently removed from development and kept in agriculture, forever.

When a Marin farming family decides to protect their land through an nới lỏng bảo tồn nông nghiệp, they are compensated for the loss of their development rights — typically calculated as the difference between the land’s fair market value and its value as agricultural land. That compensation reflects real estate values, and in Marin County, those values have risen substantially over the decades we’ve been doing this work.

While private donations play a critical role in protecting the land, the strength of land trusts like MALT lies in our ability to leverage public and private funds together to purchase agricultural conservation easements and protect farmland forever. We use public funding matched with private donations to have the most impact.

How Public Funding for Land Conservation Works

Public funding for farmland conservation originates from federal, state, and local sources — each with its own structure, requirements, and democratic origins.

Federal funding is appropriated through Congress and distributed through agencies like the Bộ Nông nghiệp Hoa Kỳ (USDA) via grants or to states to further distribute.

State funding is generated by sources like sales tax and appropriated by voter initiatives. In California, we have a strong history of voter-approved ballot initiatives that support conservation and environmental protection, reflecting a broad public consensus for investing in the environment. A recent example is Döï Luaät 4, passed by California voters in 2024 to fund $10 billion for natural resource protection and climate resilience projects.

Local funding comes from cities, counties, and special districts, sourced primarily through taxes and allocated by local governments or through local voter initiatives, like Biện pháp A của Quận Marin.

In addition to directly supporting the cost of the easement, private donor support — funding professional staff, their work and expertise, and the trust and relationships built over decades — gives MALT the capacity to find and unlock far larger public dollars in the process.

Trang trại Belvedere Hicks Mountain, permanently protected in 2024 through a conservation easement funded by Marin County’s Measure A and matched with private donations. In the background, an interconnected network of MALT-protected ranchlands stretches across West Marin — an intact ecosystem, a viable ranching landscape, and a portrait of what 46 years of public-private partnership has made possible.

The Numbers Behind 46 Years of Partnership

The leverage math tells a compelling story. For every private dollar contributed to MALT’s land protection work, MALT has leveraged roughly $2.50 in public co-investment. About 71 cents of every dollar spent protecting Marin farmland has come from some form of public funding — local, state, or federal.

Without that public partnership, the back-of-the-napkin math suggests MALT would have protected 30 ranches instead of 98. The remaining two-thirds of what has been conserved together simply would not exist without the public funding partnership.

This partnership works both for people and nature. In many ways, a voter approving Measure A and a donor making a gift are expressions of the same value — a community choosing, together, to invest in this landscape.

Where the Public Money Has Come From

Public funding comes with restrictions and requirements, making it critical to identify and pursue the right opportunities. At MALT, we target programs that support the conservation of agricultural working lands, natural climate solutions, and biodiversity and natural resources protection. We track new and existing grant programs, evaluate alignment with each program’s goals, and compete for funding through open grant processes — while also working with partners to advocate for policies that support new sources of agricultural conservation funding.

Measure A has been MALT’s single largest public grant funding partner. Since 2012, Marin voters have provided $22.9 million toward farmland conservation — a direct expression of public will to keep this landscape in open space and agriculture. Measure A dollars have been part of the funding mix for 18 easements totaling 11,149 acres, often working alongside state, federal, and private funds to make each transaction possible.

The most recent example: Tunnel Hill Ranch in Tomales, MALTQuyền sử dụng đất thứ 99 của 's.

Tunnel Hill Ranch sits at the northern gateway to Tomales, defining the rural character that greets visitors as they enter the town. In April 2026, the Marin County Board of Supervisors approved a Measure A grant — matched with private donations — to help fund a $1.1 million conservation easement on this 110-acre property. Owned by the Etemad family since 1976, the ranch will remain in active agricultural use forever.

At the state level, agencies including the Bảo tồn ven biển, Các Cục bảo tồn, Các Ban bảo tồn động vật hoang dã, and others have contributed more than $20 million across dozens of MALT easement transactions. Much of this funding flows from California’s general budget and from voter-approved ballot initiatives — a reflection of the broad public consensus in California for investing in conservation and environmental protection.

A standout state program is California’s Sustainable Agricultural Lands Conservation Program (SALC). Since 2015, SALC has been continuously funded through the Quỹ giảm phát thải khí nhà kính, financed by cap-and-invest auction proceeds. SALC is considered California’s most effective tool for protecting agricultural land while fighting climate change.

Out of 117 programs funded through the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, SALC is responsible for 15 percent of the fund’s total emission reductions despite historically receiving only 2 percent of its funding, making it the third most cost-effective climate program California runs.

MALT has protected two ranches — Trang trại Bivista và Trang trại Gallagher North Bend, totaling 922 acres near Tomales Bay and Point Reyes Station — using SALC funding, and is hoping to access SALC funding to protect four more ranches in the near future. It’s a program worth fighting for, and I’ve been making that case publicly — including in a recent op-ed in the Marin IJ.

Federal USDA Programs

At the federal level, nearly $6 million has been granted through the Dịch vụ bảo tồn tài nguyên thiên nhiên của USDA (NRCS) và của mình Agricultural Conservation Easement Program (ACEP) competitive grant programs to protect MALT quyền đi lại.

Authorized by Congress through the Farm Bill — the foundational legislation governing federal agricultural policy, renewed every five years — ACEP represents a long-standing national commitment to keeping productive farmland in agricultural use and out of development. It is among the largest federal sources of funding for private land conservation in the United States, and exists because Congress has repeatedly affirmed that protecting the nation’s working lands is a public priority worth investing in.

Many of these public funding opportunities require matching funds. Private donor support helps match those funds, unlocking public support that would otherwise be out of reach

Why Protecting Marin Farmland Now Matters

As climate change makes local food systems and working farmland more valuable — for healthy soil, clean water, and community resilience — the case for protecting it now has never been stronger.

The families who want to protect their land are here now. The programs that help make conservation possible exist now. And every acre permanently protected today is one that stays in production, supports the next generation of farmers and ranchers, and contributes to a more resilient Marin.

What has been built here is something rare, a working example of partnership and cooperation, at scale, in service of something that will outlast any single generation. That is worth celebrating. And there has never been a better time to add to it.

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One Gift. Two and a Half Times the Impact

Khi bạn hỗ trợ MALT, your dollars multiply. Many of the public grants MALT competes for require matching funds from private sources — meaning your gift directly unlocks public co-investment from Marin County, the State of California, and federal agricultural conservation programs. For every private dollar contributed, MALT has leveraged roughly $2.50 in public funding.

You’re not just making a gift. You’re making the whole partnership work.