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 and children. Our small family, as well as about 26 other farm families, share a space of about 40 acres. The land is owned by, and on, the Mequon Nature Preserve and it is managed by the Fondy Farm Program. I think that this collection of about 26 mostly BIPOC farm businesses on this single contiguous piece of land is one of the largest in the Midwest. This space is culturally significant and the food that is grown in this space feeds the inner city.
While we are very much appreciative of all the work that Fondy has done over the last decade plus to create such a wonderful community farming space, we know that ownership of land is the only way that we can ensure that we can keep farming in the way that suits our context and control our own farming destiny. Renting space is much cheaper and less risky than owning the land, and renting is something that I firmly think a new grower should pursue first so they can invest in other parts of the business.
The conveniences of renting come at a cost of your own agency around business and personal life decisions, however. This lack of security and choice is why the Fondy Farm Program began and continues now, and why I am part of the National Young Farmers Coalition as one of their 100 Land Advocacy Fellows.
Leasing land in Mequon Nature Preserve has drawbacks
This lack of decision-making power as a farmer on rented land greatly limits our production. We live in a state where we don’t have a very long summer and many staple crops can only survive here for so long, but having greenhouses can extend your farming season. Because we rent the land we grow our crops on, and we are within the city limits, we can’t have those greenhouses per municipality code and direction from the nature preserve.
This means we can’t secure that extra income from having a longer production season. I will remind you that we had a drought early this season and we don’t have irrigation at the farm. Since we don’t own the land, we can’t dig a well to supply the crops with the amount of water they need and at the ideal time to keep them alive and thriving. If we owned farmland, these would only be an issue as far as applying for loans and grants or paying to build what we need.
I’m sure you are also well aware that land within the city of Milwaukee is far from cheap, and even if it were cheap, there doesn’t seem to be an abundance of large farmable tracts of land that won’t need a huge amount of capital to make that land productive. This lack of affordable, geographically close to the end customer and good quality land issue is the highest and most pressing issue for the thousands of farmers surveyed in 2022 by the National Young Farmers Coalition.
Provision in 2024 Farm Bill could help more purchase land
A provision in the farm bill could help. The Increasing Land Access, Security, and Opportunities Act (HR.3955, S.2340), known as the LASO Act, to be adopted into the now 2024 Farm Bill. Why? That’s simple, believe it or not. The LASO act would directly fund farmland purchase or improvement projects for underserved communities, provide flexible options for funded work, and allow those of us farmers that are not tribally connected or nonprofit to be able to participate. And that is just the beginning of all of the benefits. Most of us for-profit and small-scale farmers don’t qualify for this type of funding, except within this bill. It’s the only one to keep us in mind from the start.
Now I don’t want to sell this to you as a clear solution to all of the inequality we see in the farming world. It is, however, a good start to reconcile with the troublesome participation of ongoing and historical racism and sexism at the USDA through its employees and the policies set in place by congress.
But how will we manage to get this into law? That happens with your help. Call Wisconsin Sens. Tammy Baldwin and Ron Johnson, or use Young Farmers’ action page to send them an email. Call on all of the Wisconsin members of the House of Representatives and tell them to support including the LASO act in the 2024 Farm Bill. Demand that they support BIPOC and young farmers by voting yes to this. And be persistent. They get lots of emails and calls, leave them more than one. Make sure they know where you stand and we just might accomplish this small step towards correcting what has been so wrong for so long at the USDA. And tell your friends to do more of the same.
We can make this happen, I know it doesn’t feel like we can. But together we have a lot more power than we realize, and we should wield this power for something good for our community. We have long been owed this opportunity and it is time for the government to make good on this promise.
Martice Scales owns and operates Full Circle Healing, a family-run farm, healing center and apothecary with his wife, Amy Kroll-Scales, and two children.