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Charles Madlock is a Land Advocacy Fellow with the National Young Farmers Coalition and his op-ed was first published in the Erie Times in March 2024. I started Golden Carat Farm (GCF) in 2021 as a solution to challenges faced by marginalized farmers like myself. “Planting seeds, growing community” is the tagline I use for my business. As the Urban Agriculture…

Carly Boyer is a Land Advocacy Fellow with the National Young Farmers Coalition and stewards 140 acres in Polk County, OR. Their op-ed was first published in Modern Farmer in March 2024. As a teenager, I distinctly remember my father telling me to not follow in the family business. I now know he said this to shield me…

Martice Scales is a Land Advocacy Fellow with the National Young Farmers Coalition and owns and operates Full Circle Healing, a family-run farm, healing center and apothecary with his wife, Amy Kroll-Scales, and two children. This op-ed was first published in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in February 2024. I am a local, small-scale, all-natural farmer who grows on rented land with my wife…

Hannah Breckbill is a Land Advocacy Fellow with the National Young Farmers Coalition and co-owns Humble Hands Harvest, a worker-owned cooperative farm in the Driftless region of Northeast Iowa. This letter to the editor was first published in Decorah News in February 2024. I live and farm here in Iowa, known for its rich soils and…

Jane Kaminski is a Land Advocacy Fellow with the National Young Farmers Coalition and a farmer and co-owner/operator of John-Paul’s Farm in East Wheatfield Township, Indiana County, Pennsylvania. This op-ed was first published Lancaster Farming in January 2024. Recently, I drove past a sign that said, “Farmland For Sale, Mini Mall Development Opportunity.” I wanted to turn around and…

Angelina Montez is a Nuyorican grower, food justice advocate, and a Land Advocacy Fellow with the National Young Farmers Coalition. She centers her work around access to knowledge about farming, nutrition, and herbalism while uplifting BIPOC and Queer communities. She hopes to continue writing, speaking, and one day teaching about the intersections between agriculture, race,…

Kyle Rooke is a Land Advocacy Fellow with Young Farmers and farms near the headwaters of the Youghiogheny River on the boarder of West Virginia. I have been farming in West Virginia for nearly a decade, growing a wide range of vegetables, mushrooms, and raising livestock. I’ve stacked hay in the barn, and run barley…

Julian Mangano is a Land Advocacy Fellow with Young Farmers and a farmer at Della Terra, a small, bio-intensive farm in Castorland, NY. I have been involved with small-scale, organic farming for the past six years. I own and operate Della Terra Farm where we grow cut flowers, diversified vegetable crops, and herbs, using permaculture…

Tolu Igun is an urban farmer and founder of OlaLekan Farm established in Prince George’s County, Maryland. Igun is currently a co-coordinator of ECO City Farms Beginning Farmer Training Program, and a land advocacy fellow with the National Young Farmers Coalition. I dream often about the future of food. These dreams are ambitious, but ultimately…

Laura Colligan is a Land Advocacy Fellow with Young Farmers and a first generation farmer at Dirt Rich Farm in Springville, New York. There’s been a recent flurry of headlines about the skyrocketing price of farmland, but farmland affordability has been a problem long before the pandemic-era price spikes disrupted huge swaths of our economy….