CANFIELD ­– Certain landowners who intend to use their property for varying types of farming have means available to pay lower income taxes, an agriculture expert says.

“There are many facets to qualify under the agriculture banner that people may not know about,” Blaine Winger, an agriculture district technician with the Mahoning Soil & Water Conservation District, said. “When we think agriculture, we think crops.”

Winger was referring to the Current Agricultural Usage Valuation program, the topic for which he was one of the presenters at Wednesday evening’s 90-minute informational session at the Canfield branch of the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County, 43 W. Main St.

The CAUV program, which was adopted in 1973 as a state charter amendment, states that farmland is taxed at a rate that reflects its value for agricultural purposes rather than its value as potential development property.

The district has a memorandum of understanding with the Mahoning County Auditor’s Office to perform inspections and computerized soil mappings associated with CAUV properties in the county, Winger said.

He added that a minimum of 10 acres of such land must be designated for agricultural purposes. Property less than that amount must meet such a requirement and have earned at least $2,500 of average annual gross income from the sale of products raised on the parcel during the three years prior to having filed the application, to be eligible for CAUV status, Winger explained.

Qualifying uses of such property include the commercial production of field crops, tobacco, timber, sod or flowers, apiculture (beekeeping), animal husbandry (livestock raising and selective breeding), fruits and vegetables, nursery stock, ornamental trees and aquaculture (controlled cultivation of fish and other aquatic organisms), according to the auditor’s office.

Mahoning County uses about 101 soil types for valuation and has more than 105,600 acres of crop and woodland under the CAUV program, Heather DeJesus, the auditor’s office’s chief real estate appraiser, told an audience of about 50.

CAUV also considers crop yields, patterns and prices, along with a capitalization rate formula. Largely because of inflation, as well as high yields and prices, soil rates saw a 128% increase in 2023, DeJesus noted.

Nick Kennedy, senior organization director with the Columbiana, Mahoning, Portage and Stark County farm bureaus, said that entering the CAUV program requires a $25 initial application fee, as well as a yearly renewal. He added that the Ohio Department of Taxation sets CAUV values.

In June 2017, key reforms to the program were enacted, one of which was a provision stating that privately installed measures would be limited to 25% of total CAUV acreage to ensure landowners wouldn’t be penalized by tax policy for having conservation measures designed to benefit their farms and the larger environment, according to the Ohio Farm Bureau.

Former Gov. John Kasich signed the 2014 state budget that contained changes to the CAUV formula, which resulted in significant tax increases to farm owners, according to the bureau.

“It’s taken three years of grassroots action to fix the flaws in the CAUV formula,” Adam Sharp, the Ohio Farm Bureau’s executive vice president, said in late 2017, referring to the reforms.