Finding Farmland Guide

A Farmer's Guide to Working with Land Trusts

Read the Guide

This guide 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.

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