The North Carolina Farm Transition Network (NCFTN) and North Carolina Cooperative Extension have announced a 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 of this series will be held June 16 in Newland and June 17 in Sylva, with plans underway for locations across the state.  For more information and to print a mail-in registration form, go to http://transylvania.ces.ncsu.edu/index.php?page=home.          

"In rural communities across North Carolina, outreach and education efforts on helping landowners plan the futures of their farm have produced a constant 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 practitioners, advisors and landowners in those areas."  He added that such an effort will hopefully increase landowner access to good legal, tax and land management advice, especially where a family wants to keep land managed in its current farm and forest use into the next generation.   

Seminar 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 advisers seeking professional credit, an hour of ethics training on working with multiple landowners and an adviser team will be offered.  As of this release, professional credit has been applied for with the North Carolina State Bar and the Society of American Foresters. 

The initial workshops are supported by the USDA's Risk Management Agency.  For more information, contact Andrew Branan at 919 732 7539 or email abranan@gmail.com .  For more information on the North Carolina Farm Transition Network, please visit their website at http://www.ncftn.org .