By Kelsey Zaavedra, Land Advocacy Fellow and vegetable farmer from Minnesota

For the last two years, I’ve been in constant wonder of why my farm, despite being in an agricultural zone, doesn’t get agricultural taxation. I pay 14 times the amount of my farming neighbors, who have a parcel the exact same size as mine. I went to the county assessor to change my tax status, but I was told that my farmland was classified as residential and that there was no way to change it due to a state statute. I was being taxed through the roof simply because of the size of my farm. I have 5 acres surrounded by corn and beans, and the only way to obtain agricultural tax status was to buy another 5 acres within a four township radius–we need 10 acres to be considered a farm.

Essentially, if I wanted fair taxes, I’d have to change the law. So I asked our commissioner of agriculture who I had to talk to to change this law, and then spoke to the commissioner of revenue. I explained that small farmers like me, who are farming full-time, are still being excluded from the very tax that was designed to keep us on the land! Throughout the process of talking with commissioners, I used the Young Farmers’ farm bill talking points: that we are losing farmland at 2,000 acres a day to development, and young farmers are actively leaving farming because we cannot compete. The only thing we are left with is to buy smaller parcels because it’s all we can afford. The face of agriculture is changing and this is an opportunity to create spaces for small farmers instead of being a barrier.

My land story isn’t just something to share with Congress, but was also an effective tool to create legislative change in my home state. I worked with the Farmers Union to change language in the existing tax law to include all farmers, no matter how small their farm is, as long as the gross income is $5k in their schedule F. The law will also now acknowledge the numerous small farmers like me who have been dismissed and seen as hobbyists. Most importantly, this change will decrease land prices if it’s classified as agricultural! The hearing went well and this will likely be tucked into the omnibus bill at the end of session next month. If it passes, it will be made into law 2025.

The picture above is me testifying on this in the senate tax committee. We had the senate agriculture chair carry the bill (he is also on the tax committee), and he is sitting next to me. I also rallied my friends to write letters of support on the record–one used Young Farmers as her organization–and then another land access advocate came to testify in person. 

None of this was hard; it just took time, patience and commitment. Just think if we had arms in each state to drive change like this!