By Shelby Shank
Field Editor

The Texas Agricultural Land Trust (TALT) is dedicated to the conservation of working lands and preserving part of Texas’ natural heritage.

Texas’ privately-owned farms, ranches and forestlands account for 141.5 million acres, which is about 82% of the state, according to TALT.

However, Texas leads the nation in the loss of rural lands.

“We’re losing land so quickly to urban development and land fragmentation where these large ranches are being broken up and sold in smaller tracks,” Russell Marshall, chairman of the board of TALT, said in an interview with the Texas Farm Bureau (TFB) Radio Network.

Texas is losing about 26.6 acres of land per hour, Marshall said. The loss has economic, social and environmental consequences, threatening Texas’ position as a food producer, sources of drinking water and privately-managed habitat.

TALT was created by farmers and ranchers for farmers and ranchers to bring landowners tools and resources needed to achieve their goals of productivity, sustainability and legacy preservation.

“Conservation easements, especially on Texas working lands, are extremely important in the state of Texas,” Marshall said.

A conservation easement is a voluntary legal agreement allowing landowners to retain title and management of their property, while forfeiting, donating or selling certain development rights to a land trust. This protects the land from commercial or residential development, preserves habitat, limits subdivision and fragmentation of the land, and allows landowners to ensure the land they love is protected into perpetuity.

“I’m a sixth-generation Texan. My family’s owned land in South Texas since 1910. I’ve seen agricultural lands lost to the growth our state is seeing,” Marshall said. “I’ve never lost sight of the fact that I grew up a ranch kid, and I want my children to be able to grow up ranch kids, and I want my grandchildren to be able to grow up ranch kids. This is one way that we can do that.”

TALT is the only land trust in the state focused on conserving Texas’ heritage of agricultural lands, wildlife habitats and natural resources.

“One of the things that’s so important for Texas is to keep Texas agricultural working lands where they need to be in farmers’ and ranchers’ hands and doing what they’ve always done,” Marshall said.

For more information, visit www.txaglandtrust.org.