Opinion ID: 2027701
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Heading: The Constitutional Restriction on Agricultural Land Alienation.

Text: The Iowa Constitution provides: No lease or grant of agricultural lands, reserving any rent, or service of any kind, shall be valid for a longer period than twenty years. Iowa Const. art. I, § 24. We must decide whether the lease between the trust and Schildberg is a lease ... of agricultural lands. A similar, but not identical, issue was involved in Trustees of Green Bay Levee & Drainage District v. Alexander, 252 Iowa 801, 108 N.W.2d 593 (1961). In the Alexander case, a power company entered into a settlement contract with landowners who had objected to the establishment of a drainage district. Alexander, 252 Iowa at 805, 108 N.W.2d at 595. The company promised the property owners that they would be assessed only five cents per acre annually in return for the landowners' agreement to the inclusion of their land in the drainage district. Id. The property owners later sought to have the contract declared invalid under the agricultural alienation provision. Id. at 812, 108 N.W.2d at 600. We held that article I, section 24 did not prohibit this contract because it was not a lease or grant. Id. We said, A lease or grant of agricultural land is a contract for the possession and profits of land. Id. The present case takes the Alexander analysis one step further. The issue here is whether an agreement for the possession and profits of land for solely non-agricultural purposes is a lease or grant of agricultural lands, as those words are used in article I, section 24. We did not answer that question in Alexander. In deciding the meaning of this constitutional provision, we strive to ascertain the intent of the framers. Redmond v. Ray, 268 N.W.2d 849, 853 (Iowa 1978). We give the words used by the framers their natural and commonly-understood meaning. Id. However, we also examine the constitutional history and consider the object to be attained or the evil to be remedied as disclosed by circumstances at the time of adoption. Id. Thus, we begin with a review of the purpose of article I, section 24. Our constitutional limitation on the term of agricultural leases originated in the New York Constitution of 1846. Casey v. Lupkes, 286 N.W.2d 204, 206 (Iowa 1979). Such restrictions were intended to prevent oppressive, long-term leases of manorial land to tenants who had no incentive to improve the land. Id. at 205. As the New York Court of Appeals stated in 1900: The evil aimed at by the constitution is long leases of farming lands for farming purposes, not the ... erection of dwelling houses, stores, or manufactories, or of a mine in the bowels of the earth, with the right to bring ore to the surface and ship it. Massachusetts Nat'l Bank v. Shinn, 163 N.Y. 360, 57 N.E. 611, 613 (1900). Consistent with this purpose, the New York court concluded in Shinn that a mining lease did not come within the spirit of the constitutional prohibition. Id. The court observed that the lease was not a lease of agricultural lands for agricultural purposes, but of mineral lands for mining purposes. Id. The court reached this conclusion even though the land encumbered by the lease was suitable for farming and was used for agricultural purposes to the extent the land was not required for mining purposes. Id. Other states with similar constitutional provisions have also held that a lease of agricultural land for non-agricultural purposes only does not fall within the constitutional restriction. De Grasse v. Verona Mining Co., 185 Mich. 514, 152 N.W. 242, 250 (1915) (fifty-year lease of agricultural land for purpose of mining ore was valid because it expressly prohibited any agricultural use); Bookout v. White, 123 Mont. 459, 214 P.2d 861, 863 (1950) (upholding ninety-nine year lease of half an acre of land with a cabin for hunting and recreational use); Berry-Iverson Co. of N. Dakota, Inc. v. Johnson, 242 N.W.2d 126, 132 (N.D.1976) (lease of longer than permissible duration upheld because it was for use of land as a radio transmitter tower site); Ryan v. Sioux Gun Club, 68 S.D. 345, 2 N.W.2d 681, 683 (1942) (interpreted a similar constitutional provision to permit leases that excluded agricultural use of the land). We join with these courts and hold that our constitutional agricultural land alienation restriction does not apply to agricultural land leased for purely non-agricultural purposes. Because the lease between the trust and Schildberg is clearly limited to use of the land for mining of limestone and gravel, [2] this mineral lease does not fall within the constitutional restriction.