The National Young Farmers Coalition released a new guide for farmers, designed to provide an introduction to land trusts and explain the process of partnering with a land trust to access affordable farmland.
Download Guide (PDF)
The Farmer’s Guide to Working with Land Trusts is written for farmers, land trust staff, and farmer service providers. The guide gives an introduction to land trusts, explains how these groups can be powerful partners in a farmer’s search for affordable farmland, and provides detailed information about the process of working with a land trust.
Finding and securing land to farm is one of the biggest challenges that beginning farmers and ranchers face in starting a career in agriculture. Farmland prices are at a record high across the country and land has become increasingly unaffordable for farmers. The land surrounding our nation’s cities, where market opportunities are greatest for beginning farmers, is often the most difficult to access.
In the fall of 2013, we published Farmland Conservation 2.0: How Land Trusts Can Protect America’s Working Farms. In that report, we called on land trusts to increase their efforts to ensure that America’s farmland stays in active agricultural production and in the hands of farmers. We believe that farmers must be a part of this conversation as well. This guidebook provides farmers with practical tools and resources for partnering with a land trust to access land.
The guide includes:
- An introduction to land trusts and conservation easements
- A toolbox of ways in which young farmers can partner with a land trust
- A guide for reaching out to a land trust, with detailed steps and information about what to expect once you do
- An overview of a typical land trust transaction, including a sample timeline and project budget
- An appendix, which lists organizations that may be helpful partners in the process of working with a land trust
Download the report here. Email holly@youngfarmers.org with questions!
Holly,
I am the President and Coordinating Director for the Food Commons, a large scale, wholly integrated and comprehensive system for local food. We have the same interests and goals with respect to farmland. Please go to our website and pull down our pdf file of our concept piece, the Food Commons 2.0. and read how we’ve integrated Trusts as a core component to our whole system.
It would be good to connect at some point.
best, Larry
I’m based in Mpumalanga about 80km to Kruger National Park South Africa. I’m intern and am selling a 56 hectare farm. The farm has 1000 macadamia trees, 400 mango trees, sheet metal workshop, wildlife, 4 star lodge, Clive to N4 highway between Mozambique and Johannesburg, This farm also has a water purification plant, and it is fully enclosed and access is secure. It has a plant nursery and horticultural plants. This is a good business opportunity and a good return on investment farm. Please contact me for pictures of the farm at +27749905872 or email me at linda.chirwa@century21.co.za please.