A $412,000 grant to help preserve the 186-acre Murphy Ranch east of downtown Tomales was approved by the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday. The grant will fund half the cost of an agricultural easement that the Marin Agricultural Land Trust plans to purchase. The easement will require active agricultural use of the property, which is currently used for cattle grazing and row cropping. Scott Murphy, a third generation Marin rancher who bought the property in the 1970s, owns the ranch with his ex-wife, Anne. Dairy heifers graze on about 160 acres, and another 25 acres are planted with row crops, largely potatoes and tomatoes. “This ranch is one of the few…that supports irrigated row agriculture,” said MALT executive director Jamison Watts at the board meeting, “so it’s important that we protect these resources in the county.” The ranch is comprised of two legal lots, one owned by Scott and the other by Anne. With the financing from a MALT easement—which would total $825,000 including the county grant, another $200,000 grant from the National Resources Conservation Service, and private MALT money—Scott could purchase Anne’s half and merge the two lots into a single legal parcel. Though Mr. Watts noted that the ranch is “on the smaller side,” he stressed that it remained important to preserve; without the easement, the ranch would likely go to sale to the highest bidder and fall out of agricultural use. “Smaller ranches closer to urban centers, such as the Murphy Family’s Fallon Ranch, are at particularly high threat for conversion to luxury homes and estates or hobby farms,” MALT wrote to the county. The county grant funds come from a measure passed by voters in 2012; the quarter cent retail transactions and use tax mainly supports county parks and open spaces but 15 percent of revenues support agricultural conservation easements.