California has long been a leader in both its attempts to preserve land devoted to agricultural production and in its approach to funding its state and local governments. Recently it has become the leader in creating a statewide policy (AB 32) to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases generated...

We analyze the spread of use-value assessment (UVA) programs applied to agricultural and rural land for property tax purposes across the 50 states. Taxing such land on the basis of its current use in agriculture rather than its full market value can confer significant property tax reductions on...