HB0056 Summary: Farmer Restoration Program Act

• Creates the Farmer Restoration Program Fund to provide grants for agricultural conservation easements and technical assistance to socially disadvantaged farmers, limited resource farmers, eligible individuals with land dispossession history, and new and beginning farmers.

• Requires at least 90% of available grant funds be used for acquiring agricultural conservation easements on qualified farmland, with no more than 10% used for technical assistance and administration.

• Establishes the Farm Conservation Corps to provide academic, vocational, and social skills training to residents aged 18-29 from socially disadvantaged groups through on-farm apprenticeships on farms with conservation easements or annual gross income under $250,000.

• Mandates the Department of Agriculture adopt a scoring process prioritizing grant applications benefiting socially disadvantaged farmers, limited resource farmers, eligible individuals with land dispossession history, and new and beginning farmers, with additional ranking criteria for leveraging local/federal/private funding and supporting conservation priorities.

• Requires annual public reporting on assistance recipients by race, ethnicity, and gender, plus research on land ownership disparities, farmworker demographics, corporate land investment impacts, and census of agriculture accuracy for socially disadvantaged farmers.