Georgia’s new Farmland Conservation Fund pulled in its first round of applications by May 20, 2026, and the $2 million in state funding will be parceled out to selected applicants in August. It is the first dedicated state program to slow the loss of farmland to development, and it goes live in a state where Agriculture Commissioner Tyler Harper says 800,000 acres could be lost by 2040. That figure represents 10% of the farmland still in production.
For farmers like Russ Moon, the question is whether the state pot can match the developers’ offers. Moon grows corn, soybeans, and strawberries on his family’s Madison County land outside Athens, where four generations have worked the same soil for around 100 years. The new program is built around conservation easements. A landowner sells the development rights to a land trust, the land stays in farming, and half the payment comes from the new state fund.
A New Tool for Farmers Like Moon
Some of Moon’s land is already in a conservation easement. He signed on with a land trust in 2019, before the new state program existed. Other farms around him have already sold to developers, he said, and he is watching Madison County slip toward subdivision one fence line at a time.
The new Georgia Farmland Conservation Fund is built to scale up that approach. Landowners apply through a qualified easement holder, which can be a state agency, federal agency, county, municipality, or nonprofit land trust. Half of any payment comes from the new state fund, with the rest expected from a land trust, a local government, or the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which allocates $450 million a year to match state conservation dollars. The easement is permanent: the farmer can still sell the land, but not to a developer who would convert it to housing, a strip mall, or an industrial site.
The 800,000-Acre Tally
The 800,000-acre projection comes from the Georgia Department of Agriculture. “That means 10% of our farmland will be gone in the next 15 years or so,” Agriculture Commissioner Tyler Harper said, calling the figure “a staggering statistic.”
A separate estimate from the American Farmland Trust puts the figure a touch lower. The trust’s Farms Under Threat 2040 report, with a state-by-state breakdown of projected farmland loss, projects 798,400 acres lost, or about 7% of Georgia’s farmland, ranking the state fourth nationally by acreage behind Texas, North Carolina, and Tennessee. Five of the ten U.S. counties with the highest share of land projected to be converted sit in Georgia.
- Up to 800,000 acres of farmland could be lost by 2040 (Georgia Department of Agriculture)
- That’s 10% of the state’s farmland (Agriculture Commissioner Tyler Harper)
- AFT’s Farms Under Threat 2040 projects 798,400 acres lost, or 7% of farmland (American Farmland Trust)
- Georgia ranks 4th in projected U.S. farmland loss by acreage, behind Texas, North Carolina, and Tennessee (AFT)
- Five of the ten U.S. counties with the highest projected conversion share sit in Georgia (AFT)
The climate stakes run alongside the economic ones, according to AFT. Converting farmland to other uses tends to release the carbon stored in topsoil, the group wrote in its 2024 brief on agricultural land protection and climate. Conservation easements, by contrast, can encourage farming practices that pull more carbon out of the air and protect adjacent woods and wetlands that farming would have cleared. Some of Moon’s own land is already inside an easement, and he said he wants the same protection for what is left.
How Georgia Compares With Other States
Some 30 states already run what are called Purchase of Agricultural Conservation Easement programs, and Georgia just joined them. Texas allocates $2 million a year, roughly the same as Georgia’s first round. Florida moved bigger sums, with $300 million in 2022 and $100 million in 2024.
| State program | Funding (most recent disclosure) |
|---|---|
| Georgia Farmland Conservation Fund | $2 million (first round, 2026) |
| Texas PACE | $2 million annually |
| Florida PACE | $100 million (2024); $300 million (2022) |
An advocacy group that pushed the program through the legislature, the Georgia Conservancy, said twenty-nine other states have protected 3.2 million acres of farmland in total through similar programs, with a breakdown of how the state reviews proposals. The federal piece, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s $450 million annual allocation, is the lever that lets a small state pot go further. State dollars can be matched several times over once the federal match is on the table, and a single easement often draws from more than one source. Georgia’s first round of applications closed on May 20, and selected applicants will be notified in August 2026.
Georgia’s first pot is closer to Texas’s than to Florida’s. That ceiling matters: it sets the cap on how many farms the state can take out of the development market in a single cycle.
The program was created by Senate Bill 220, adopted in 2023, and the legislature passed the initial round of funding in 2024. It is administered by the Georgia Department of Agriculture and governed by the Georgia Farmland Conservation Council, an advisory body created in the same law. The statute governing the program is O.C.G.A. \u00a7 44-10-40 through \u00a7 44-10-47, and the program’s official state page lists the 2026 cycle only as “under review.”
The Math Behind an Easement
Transitional farmland in Georgia, the property on the edge of flipping from farm to development, sold in 2025 for anywhere from just over $6,000 an acre to more than $260,000 an acre, according to Saunders Land, a real estate brokerage that tracks the niche. The range is so wide because location, zoning, and what the buyer plans to do with the land all move the number. A conservation easement typically pays less than an outright sale, since the farmer is selling rights rather than the land itself. Still, the easement check does not come with a bulldozer attached.
American Farmland Trust estimates that if Georgia invests in farmland protection and chooses smarter growth, the state could keep more than one million acres in production, hold onto $566 million in farm output, and protect 7,500 jobs. Those projections sit alongside the development numbers, not in place of them. The state’s $2 million first round is a down payment, and the rest of the match is what determines how much the fund actually buys.
A ‘Number One’ Tension
Georgia has held the title of top state for business for 12 straight years, according to the state’s 12th straight No. 1 business ranking, announced in September 2025. The same state ranks agriculture as its number one industry. The two titles are not in conflict on the state’s marketing page, but they are in tension on the ground. A housing subdivision, a warehouse, a data center, or a strip mall each count as economic development wins under one banner, and each one takes farmland out under the other.
Moon, the Madison County farmer, sees the trade-off plainly. Other farms around him have already sold, he said, and the area’s pull toward the University of Georgia keeps the offers coming. He does not want his own land in the path of it. The new program is the state’s wager that buying development rights is cheaper than losing farms. That is the bet the August awards will start to settle.
The whole time we keep being the number one place to do business, we’re hurting our number one industry.
That line is from Russ Moon, a fourth-generation farmer in Madison County, in comments reported by Grist and the Georgia Recorder in late June 2026. The Georgia Department of Agriculture will announce the first round of easement awards in August, and a 2027 application cycle is already listed on the program’s official state page. Per the program rules, any easement signed with the fund’s money runs in perpetuity, which is what makes the $2 million a down payment on a much longer wager.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Georgia Farmland Conservation Fund?
A state program created by Senate Bill 220 in 2023 and run by the Georgia Department of Agriculture and the Georgia Farmland Conservation Council. The fund pays up to half of the cost of a conservation easement on Georgia farmland, with the rest of the match coming from a land trust, a local government, or a federal farm bill program. The easement permanently restricts future development; the land itself stays in farming.
How much money is in the first round?
$2 million in state funding, with selected applicants to be notified in August 2026. The first round of applications closed on May 20, 2026, after opening February 20. The federal match from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s annual $450 million state conservation allocation is the lever that can stretch the state pot further.
Who decides which applications get funded?
The Georgia Farmland Conservation Council, an advisory body created in 2023, makes the awards. The Georgia Department of Agriculture reviews each application against a set of criteria that include the land’s vulnerability to development, its current state of cultivation, the size of the funding match, and conservation factors like habitat, water quality, and soil quality.
How does a conservation easement work in this program?
A landowner sells the right to develop the property to a qualified easement holder, which can be a state agency, federal agency, county, municipality, or nonprofit land trust. The farmer keeps the land and can still farm, grow timber, or graze livestock. The owner can even sell the property to another farmer, just not to a buyer who would convert it to housing, a strip mall, or an industrial site. The restriction runs with the deed in perpetuity.
What happens if Georgia really does lose 800,000 acres of farmland by 2040?
Per the Georgia Department of Agriculture, that is about 10% of the state’s farmland. American Farmland Trust’s separate Farms Under Threat 2040 analysis puts the number at 798,400 acres, or 7%, and ranks Georgia fourth in the nation for projected farmland loss behind Texas, North Carolina, and Tennessee. AFT estimates that Georgia could save more than one million acres, $566 million in farm output, and 7,500 jobs by investing in protection.
