Rhode Island to buy farms to help new farmers

Rhode Island is launching a program to buy farms and sell them to new farmers for dirt cheap. A farm bought for $500,000, for example, could then be sold for $100,000. It is an unconventional approach to ensure that farming remains viable. Under the program, the state will buy a farm at the full appraised value, which takes into account the land's worth if it was developed. The state will then resell the farm at the agricultural appraised value, which is its worth solely as a farm. That is typically 20 percent of the full value, Ayars said. The condition is that it must remain a farm, which the state broadly defines as anything related to the production of agricultural crops or raising livestock.Rhode Island plans to spend $3 million from the most recent environmental bond approved by voters to buy farmland and development rights.