Then offer say a 10 year lease based on these costs. Present lease holders would be given preference and the lease renewal based on maintaining the facilities/fences and water. At a later after a transition period date the leases could be put out to bids with a minimum based on the costs involved.
I wasn't going to step in... but we have the system you propose to farmland preserved county and state land out here...
I gave it a shot quite a few years back..
basically the land gets played out and is left to weeds an brush,, and then some government employed liberal with no clue about farming pays developed price or buys the development rights and the county is left trying to maintain or lease the property out,..
initially there were no bids on the pieces I bid on.. I penciled out a ten year plan.. inputs costs were high for the first three years but after that I figured a fair return..
clearing the weeds was difficult due to adjacent land that were overgrown as well,,and limits on herbicides, but by the third year it didn't look to bad, until some other locals felt I was getting to good of a deal... as I was the only bidder it wasn't considered a "fair" deal..
They sued the county and the judge felt redoing the bid would be of no harm...
I lost most of it to higher bidders,. and decided not to bid on the remainder.. the three "farmers" who won the bids didn't even make it through the three year term, before they were wanting better lower bids and a longer lease term, like I originally had... (for some reason they couldn't make it)..
now not more then 10 years later the land is back to weeds and brush.. and not making a dime in revenue..
it pisses me off every time I drive past it.. knowing the hard work I put into it was pissed away by someone who was jealous..
. I will not ever put that much money and effort into a deal with the government ever again...
if you have government land available to lease do so at your own peril.. cause there is always someone who doesn't see the whole picture ready to whine and complain and screw it up for everyone...
personally I would rather see one rancher make a fair living and caring for the land then see a bunch of bidders fighting over the land and the land losing..
Do you really think a bidder would put any effort into improving the land or facilitates in the back end of the lease?
if you think they will take care of the land in a term lease, I'll post some proof of what it looks like when left to the bidding process, environmentalists, government and weeds..