Administrative Rules of Montana › Department 42 - REVENUE › Chapter 42.20 - REAL PROPERTY › Subchapter 42.20.6 - Agricultural Land › Rule 42.20.601 - DEFINITIONS

Current through Register Vol. 13, July 5, 2024
The following definitions apply to this subchapter:
(1) "Agricultural application" means
				department form AB-3 used by taxpayers to request agricultural classification
				of land.
(2) "Agricultural products
				produced by the land" means crops or forage raised directly in the land's soil
				and used to support livestock. "Agricultural products produced by the land"
				does not mean land that is used as a "platform" for agricultural activities.
				Examples of agricultural activities that do not meet the definition
				"agricultural products produced by the land" are the feeding of livestock from
				external sources that allow stocking rates to exceed the carrying capacity or
				crops produced in potted soil that are not grown directly in the land's soil.
(3) "Ancillary improvements" means
				improvements necessary for the production and storage of raw agricultural
				commodities. These improvements do not include improvements that are used to
				process, treat, or package raw agricultural commodities into a value-added
				product, or improvements designed to accommodate and serve the
				public.
(4) "Animal unit" means a
				cow/calf pair, including a mature cow of approximately 1,200 pounds and a calf
				as old as 6 months, or their equivalent.
(5) "Animal unit month" means one animal unit
				grazing for one month. One animal unit month represents the amount of forage
				needed to properly nourish one animal unit for one month without injurious
				effect to vegetation on the land.
(6) "Biological control insect" means an
				insect that is used to reduce or eliminate noxious weeds by interference with
				the weed's ecology.
(7) "Bona fide
				agricultural operation" means an agricultural enterprise in which the land
				actually produces agricultural crops defined in
				15-1-101, MCA, that directly
				contribute agricultural income to a functional agricultural business.
(8) "Carrying capacity" means the amount of
				grazing that a pasture will sustain without injurious effect to vegetative
				growth due to the quality of the soil and the environment where it occurs.
(9) "Classification" is the
				agricultural use of the land. The department classifies agricultural land into
				one of five agricultural use classes. The department's five agricultural uses
				are described in ARM
				42.20.660 through
				42.20.680.
(10) "Conservation reserve program (CRP)"
				means a federal farm program that pays agricultural landowners to remove land
				from crop production on highly erodible soils for a specified period of time.
(11) "Contiguous parcels of land"
				means separately described parcels of land under one ownership that physically
				touch one another or would have touched one another were the acreages not
				separated by deeded roads and highways, navigable rivers and streams, railroad
				lines, or federal or state land that is leased from the federal or state
				government by the taxpayer whose land is physically touching the federal or
				state land.
(12) "Denied access or
				DA land" is a term used by the United States Department of Agriculture Natural
				Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) to describe lands where they were
				prohibited from conducting a soil survey by the owner of the land.
(13) "Domestic grazing land" means all lands
				devoted to the production of forage from introduced plants that are not part of
				the original flora of an area that are harvested directly by grazing animals.
(14) "Effectively prohibit" means
				to result in the permanent cessation of a bona fide agricultural operation.
(15) "Income from agricultural
				production" means the gross amount of income received from the sale of food,
				feed, fiber commodities, livestock, poultry, bees, biological control insects,
				fruits, vegetables, and also includes sod, ornamental, nursery, and
				horticultural crops that are raised, grown, or produced for commercial
				purposes, income from farm rental, the sale of draft, breeding, dairy, or
				sporting livestock, the share of partnership or family corporation gross income
				received from a farming or ranching business entity, or the taxpayer's share of
				distributable income from an estate or trust involved in an agricultural
				business. When the income from agricultural production is used to qualify land
				for agricultural classification, it must be reportable income for income tax
				purposes.
(a) Wages received as a farm
				employee or wages received from a farm corporation are not gross income from
				farming.
(b) A bona fide
				agricultural operation may combine the income of more than one parcel to meet
				the income requirements. The parcels must be dependent upon each other in the
				agricultural operation as a whole.