This bill creates the Maine Farms for the Future Program. This program provides funds to assist farms in developing business plans to identify changes in farm management practices and investments in equipment and property that will increase the vitality of the farm. The Department of Agriculture, Food and Rural Resources, referred to in this summary as the "department," administers the program or contracts with a suitable organization to administer the program.

The program operates in 2 phases; the first phase allows a farm that has 5 or more acres of land in agricultural use to apply for assistance in developing a business plan and the 2nd phase allows a farm that has developed a business plan with the program to apply for investment support to implement the plan. Both selection processes are conducted by a review panel organized by the department.

The first phase, in which participants are initially selected for the program, requires the panel to make its selections pursuant to selection criteria that include the opportunity for increasing the vitality of the farm due to factors such as the capability of the applicant to effect positive changes in farm operation, the suitability of the land in agricultural use to sustain those changes, the degree of threat to continued agricultural use of the land due to the financial capacity and current farm management practices of the applicant and development pressures in the area where the farm is located. If the farm is selected for the program, the program will assist the farm in assembling a package of outside services including financial, marketing, business and farm support persons or organizations and provide instruction or classroom training in economics and business to the farm's owner or operator to help develop a business plan over the period of a year. The business plan must look to increase the vitality of the farm through changes in farm management practices and investments in equipment or property. If a farm is selected in this phase, the farm must enter into a 5-year first farmland protection agreement in which the farm agrees to protect the farmland from nonagricultural development. The farm may withdraw from the agreement if the farm repays the department for any outside service reimbursement and any direct services provided the farm by the department.

The 2nd phase, in which farms that have developed business plans pursuant to the first phase are selected for investment support to implement the plan, requires the review panel to make its selections pursuant to selection criteria that include