The North Carolina Farm Transition Network has announced the start of an ongoing series of professional credit workshops for attorneys, accountants, consulting foresters, and others who advise clients with ownership interests in rural lands.  The Rural Lands Update is a coordinated response to what organizers see as a growing need in rural communities:  updates on financial, tax and legal issues related to rural land ownership. The RLU is a partnership effort of the North Carolina Farm Transition Network (NCFTN), NC Cooperative Extension, NC Farm Bureau Federation, NC Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, and the Land Loss Prevention Project.  The first installments of the series will be June 16 in Newland and June 17 in Sylva.

"As we have delivered education programs to farmers and landowners in rural farming communities across North Carolina over the years, we keep getting the same question:  'Who can I turn to for professional advice?'" said Andrew Branan, NCFTN Director and a coordinator of the program.  "This series is an effort to bring updated information on legal and tax matters associated with owning and managing rural lands directly to the practioners, advisors and landowners in those areas."  He added that such an effort will hopefully increase landowner access to good advisors, especially where a family wants to keep land managed in its current farm and forest use into the next generation.

The Newland and Sylva agendas will focus on issues relating to preserving qualification for the "Present Use Value" property tax assessment, as well as the tax, legal and land management issues related to transferring land to a business entity.  Presenters will also discuss conservation easements at the practical level, focusing on facilitating landowners' understanding of how these tools relate to their broader family goals for their land.  For

Plans are underway to bring the Rural Lands Update to communities in all areas of North Carolina starting in August of 2008.