571—106.12 (481A) Eligibility for free landowner/tenant deer licenses.
	 106.12(1) Who qualifies for free deer hunting licenses.
	  a.   	 Owners and tenants of a farm unit and the spouse and juvenile child of an owner or tenant who reside with the owner or tenant are eligible for free deer licenses. The owner or tenant does not have to reside on the farm unit but must be actively engaged in farming it. Nonresident landowners do not qualify.
	  b.   	 Juvenile child defined. “Juvenile child” means a person less than 18 years of age or a person who is 18 or 19 years of age and is in full-time attendance at an accredited school pursuing a course of study leading to a high school diploma or a high school equivalency diploma. A person 18 years of age or older who has received a high school diploma or high school equivalency diploma does not qualify.
	 106.12(2) Who qualifies as a tenant. A “tenant” is a person other than the landowner who is actively engaged in the operation of the farm. The tenant may be a member of the landowner’s family, including in some circumstances the landowner’s spouse or child, or a third party who is not a family member. The tenant does not have to reside on the farm unit.
	 106.12(3) What “actively engaged in farming” means. Landowners and tenants are “actively engaged in farming” if they personally participate in decisions about farm operations and those decisions, along with external factors such as weather and market prices, determine their profit or loss for the products they produce. Tenants qualify if they farm land owned by another and pay rent in cash or in kind. A farm manager or other third party who operates a farm for a fee or a laborer who works on the farm for a wage and is not a family member does not qualify as a tenant.
	 106.12(4) Landowners who qualify as active farmers. These landowners:
	  a.   	 Are the sole operator of a farm unit (along with immediate family members), or
	  b.   	 Make all decisions about farm operations, but contract for custom farming or hire labor to do some or all of the work, or
	  c.   	 Participate annually in decisions about farm operations such as negotiations with federal farm agencies or negotiations about cropping practices on specific fields that are rented to a tenant, or
	  d.   	 Raise specialty crops from operations such as orchards, nurseries, or tree farms that do not necessarily produce annual income but require annual operating decisions about maintenance or improvements, or
	  e.   	 May have portions of the farm enrolled in a long-term land retirement program such as the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) as long as other farm operations occur annually, or
	  f.   	 Place their entire cropland in the CRP or other long-term land retirement program with no other active farming operation occurring on the farm.
	 106.12(5) Landowners who do not qualify. These landowners:
	  a.   	 Use a farm manager or other third party to operate the farm, or
	  b.   	 Cash rent the entire farm to a tenant who is responsible for all farm operations including following preapproved operations plans.
	 106.12(6) Where free licenses are valid. A free license is valid only on that portion of the farm unit that is in a zone open to deer hunting. “Farm unit” means all parcels of land in tracts of two or more contiguous acres that are operated as a unit for agricultural purposes and are under lawful control of the landowner or tenant regardless of how that land is subdivided for business purposes. Individual parcels of land do not need to be adjacent to one another to be included in the farm unit. “Agricultural purposes” includes but is not limited to field crops, livestock, horticultural crops (e.g., from nurseries, orchards, truck farms, or Christmas tree plantations), and land managed for timber production.
	 106.12(7) Registration of landowners and tenants. Landowners and tenants and their eligible family members who want to obtain free deer hunting licenses must register with the department before the free licenses will be issued. Procedures for registering are described in 571—95.2(481A).