ELLSWORTH – Farmers should consider donating or selling the development rights to their property to preserve it as farmland and reduce the cost of farming for young families just starting out.

That message was delivered Saturday to about 50 Hancock County farmers during the annual meeting of the Soil and Water Conservation District.

Farmers asked lots of questions about their options for preserving their farmland while still getting some financial benefit from rising property values.

“Essentially, we tied up that land forever,” Gouldsboro farmer Bill Thayer said of his 33-acre farm that includes five acres of shore land.

Thayer and his wife sold the development rights to their property to the Frenchman Bay Conservancy, after putting it under state tax programs that reduced their tax exposure in exchange for a promise not to develop the land in the short-term.

“We have the satisfaction of knowing this land will never be developed,” Thayer said.

LouAnna Perkins, executive director of the Maine Farmland Trust in Bucksport, gave the farmers a presentation Saturday of their tax and planning options.

In addition to more traditional options, farmers are increasingly selling or donating their development rights in areas where farmland is most threatened by residential growth and escalating land values.

Perkins said the Farmland Trust and other land conservation groups are looking for ways to protect farmland in areas of Maine that are not under development pressure – such as Aroostook and Washington counties.

Other agriculture land in jeopardy includes blueberry fields and dairy farms that aren’t under development pressure, farm experts said.

Some farmers predicted that much of that farmland will be abandoned in the next 10 years and allowed to return to fields and forest.

Maine had 1.2 million acres of land in active agriculture in 1997, the most recent year available, compared to 4.2 million acres in 1940, Perkins said.

According to Perkins, an added benefit of selling development rights is making farming more affordable for young families.

She explained the basics of how it works: If a farm is worth $1 million because of its potential for commercial and residential development, but the land is worth only $500,000 if it’s used only for farming, then the development rights are worth up to $500,000.

The land still belongs to the family, but because the development ban passes on to the next buyer, the farm is sold only for its farm value.

“We wouldn’t have been able to buy the land without that help” from the land trusts, Blue Hill farmer Noah Lorio said.

In Lorio’s case, the owners of a 116-acre farm, with open views to Blue Hill Bay, sold the development rights to the land to the Blue Hill Heritage Trust in order to make the farm affordable for Lorio and his young family.

In that way, the former owners could get their wish of preserving their land for agriculture and open space, while giving a young family a chance at their first farm.

“The farm trust believes that we can’t just preserve farmland,” Perkins said. “We also have to preserve farming and farmers.”