Applications must be submitted to the Property Appraiser’s Office by March 1st of the same year in which you wish to receive agricultural* classification. You may download an agricultural classification application from the Department of Revenue's web site or you may pick one up in person at the Property Appraiser’s Main Office location. The Property Appraiser's Office has also created the Agricultural Classification Guidelines to help you determine whether you meet the qualifications or not. After the first year’s application has been filed, each property will receive an automatic renewal of agricultural classification as long as the eligibility requirements are still being met.
While an agricultural operation must operate with the expectation of a profit, it does not have to be operated at a profit every year in order to be bona fide. However, evidence of income the property is producing, and the techniques of care given to the land to help it produce, are relevant. In other words, please provide the management practices carried out on the land.
Factual Determinations to Consider
1. Is the property located in a rural area?
2. Has the operation been continuous?
3. Has evidence been provided that the property owner has sufficiently and adequately provided care to the property in a commercial agricultural manner?
4. Has there been a true effort to have the property contribute to the agricultural economy of the county on either a short or long term basis? If so, is it proportional to the size of the property?
5. Does the land meet the guidelines for stocking rates of various agricultural operations?
Florida Statute 193.461 is intended to provide a means whereby lands, actively used for "good faith" agricultural purposes, are assessed on a basis commensurate with their probable income from normal agricultural use; rather than being based on market value, as are all other lands. This is intended to provide a lower level of assessment on agricultural lands that normal agricultural income can support, thus making it economically possible to continue such usage. It is a privilege that should not be abused.
Agricultural parcels with homes will not receive the agricultural classification on the curtilage acreage (that area devoted to the home-site). No agriculturally classified lands will be eligible to receive homestead exemption; therefore, the homestead site will be assessed separately from the agricultural land, still allowing the owner the privilege of homestead exemption, but limiting it to the home and curtilage. This will not effect the guidelines for qualifying for agricultural classification on the remaining land.
*For the purposes of this section, "agricultural" includes, but is not limited to, horticulture, floriculture, viticulture, forestry, dairy, livestock, poultry, bee, pisciculture, tropical fish production, aquaculture, sod farming, and all forms of farm products and farm production.
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