Umi Jenkins

Director of Mississippi Farm to School Network

Our work is centered a lot around young people in grades Kindergarten through 12th. This past year, we received the Educator of the Year Award from Young, Gifted, and Empowered, because we really put a lot of emphasis around educating the community on food literacy. We’ve had higher community engagement and that’s come with our Youth Ambassador Program. Students participated from different school districts all over the state through this program. Their parents would also join, so it became a virtual network with agricultural-based learning, cooking demos—and all these things are done virtually. This level of community engagement was what we wanted, so farm-to-school doesn’t feel like something that’s so logistical and just taking place among food service directors and specialized folks.

The Farm Bill affects us in that it allows necessary changes and improvements in our agricultural system. I see the Farm Bill as something instrumental that can get your hopes up then feel quite deflating when the implementation isn’t fulfilled.

I just think Farm Bill priorities need to be radically refocused, which, depending on who you ask, feels like a difficult thing to address. But I think the application process for a lot of folks—especially farmers and organizations—is beyond frustrating and has been overly addressed in conversations around what needs to change. And I do feel that’s part of the equity and discriminatory practices that comes up with the USDA in terms of accessibility.

There’s been a lack of investment into specialty crop producers who are not growing as much as the commodity producers. And so, therefore, a lot of the funding and resources is going to the big commodity producers. Specialty crops make up a vast majority of what people need in terms of health and wellness—they don’t need processed food that comes from commodity crops like corn or soybeans. We don’t need that for our health and well-being. We need specialty crops, okra and tomatoes and all the different varieties of fruits and vegetables. If we limit that resource, limit support to the farmers who are growing those things, we are in essence dwindling that beautiful and strong element to the community, which fuels our health. It’s our food source. So, if this keeps getting neglected year after year, or the specialty crop farmers are having more and more difficulty applying for loans or getting the support they need—it just really damages and has been damaging our communities for so long. So, that is the type of implementation that I’m not seeing in my local and regional area. It’s not impacting my region. I haven’t seen any type of significant investment into specialty crop farmers. So, that’s something I think should change. 

If the Farm Bill doesn’t prioritize communities like mine, it would create even greater fatigue in our communities. People are exhausted. They’re exhausted with solutions being present and not being accessible. Something being dangled in front of you is quite frustrating. So, if something that could benefit us is proposed and suggested but not actually implemented or passed, I do feel it’s going to affect our local economy in a way that will create greater decline. We are seeing more and more young people who are leaving the state. And how can we blame them if we’re not creating economic opportunities? In rural areas, agriculture is a really large sector of their economic mobility. So, if the agricultural sector is not being invested in and uplifted, then you’re going to see these rural areas decline even more. And that will get into other discussions like the drug issues that are happening in our communities where there is poverty. That would just exacerbate already existing issues in addition to creating a great mistrust in our ability to look to legislators to solve problems.

I think even if one or two of these things that could benefit our community were strongly implemented and the follow through was there, community morale would boost. We would see improvement in terms of mental health in our community. I think we would see a decline in social issues that come about when there is a lack of investment and just a lack of interest in the community. People are unconsciously or consciously aware when they feel like their community is not expected to thrive. If there’s a shift in that then I think we’ll have more jobs, more creative jobs, more jobs that are rooted in tech because when people have a sense of job security and food security, it allows them to be more open and receptive to learning new things. 

It feels like this spiritual component that is all together left out of the conversation with how people connect with their food and how they connect with land. There’s really not space for that at a policy discussion level, but it’s such a huge part of why people even remain in certain areas despite the poverty. There’s a cultural connection as well as a connection to how people relate to the food ways. So, I think it’s important that we’re listening to the community, that part of the narrative is taken into account in how we prioritize our communities because again, this affects mental health. These are folks’ livelihoods. In terms of farmers, this is how they earn their living and how they feed their families. So, if we’re not associating that with our overall community wellness and plans to improve our community, then I don’t think we’re actively listening to the needs of our community. We’re just putting a bandaid on it or coming up with anecdotal solutions. This isn’t just land. There was bloodshed here and babies born here and bread is broken here. There were activists and people who have fought for this land and fought for the right to grow food here and to worship here. It’s hard to give that up. It’s hard to feel like you’re being run off of something that your family has lived on and loved. 

 There’s so much that is in this land. And so we honor it, and that has to be considered with resources and how we conserve it to ensure we’re creating a container to remember these things and still value these things as a part of our community.

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Ya-Sin Shabazz

Gulf Coast Sustainable Growers Alliance

We started the Gulf Coast Sustainable Growers Alliance as a way of organizing and keeping on point with a lot of our work around food. We also started the Just Water Initiative, which maintains a two-and-a-half acre off bottom oyster aquaculture operation.

Aquaculture is definitely a challenge our organization is addressing that could be affected by the Farm Bill. There are other challenges in terms of land ownership, land stewardship, and retention. And then there’s the water systems and irrigation systems that can help advance farming. So, those are two of our biggest problems with regards to our food work. With aquaculture, we have challenges in terms of boats, equipment, temporary water closures, and reef closures, because of water quality on the coast, which is also a problem.

Whenever there are adverse effects—anything from severe rain to bad weather to hurricanes being the worst—that does damage to the fisheries. But also just too much rain can affect the water sufficiency because of salinity levels, and things like that. There’s what’s called the freshwater inversion from the Mississippi River. So, when the rivers are high, the Army Corps of Engineers has the ultimate decision-making power, and they can open the spillways from the river into the Gulf. Water that comes in from the spillway will eventually make its way to the Gulf and that really impacts salinity levels, sometimes creating a salty deadzone. All of this can impact different fish species that are dependent on certain salt levels in the water and, therefore, affect the livelihood of fishermen.

Without support from the Farm Bill, there would be a number of challenges. This area has weathered them and will continue to weather them. We just hope to be able to make sure to the best extent possible by promoting local farmers, fresh food, and trying to continually educate the youth on the importance of food and food systems.

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Darnella Winston

Project Director/Cooperative Field Specialist Federation of Southern Cooperatives

Our organization was born out of the Civil Rights movement in 1972, and our focus has been corporate development, land retention, and advocacy. But, lately, we’ve been working more with youth. What we’re realizing is that there’s a whole other audience out there that we’re missing, which is the next generation. And by the next generation I mean everyone from six years old all the way to 46 years old to move into the swing of agriculture. 

I tell people that the Farm Bill sets the priorities for the food and the farm. It is one of the largest bills in terms of money that comes out of the government. We have to be able to say where we want to allocate that money. We try to come up with priorities and recommendations as far as what our members and our clients would like to see. One or two of the priorities that we push for is for the microloan to go from $50,000 to $100,000 because that’s a loan rural people are able to receive. It’s not as much based on credit as it is your work and what it is you claim that you’re trying to do. One of the things that we pushed was for the microloan’s increased limit. There’s loan forgiveness within the USDA’s Office of Partnerships and Public Engagement lending program, which has been a slow start and we’re not sure what’s going to happen with that. But our property is an issue in the BIPOC community. And in order for us to keep saving our land, we need that relending program to be able to save that land for the next generation.

Broadband is also going to be very important for us in the Farm Bill. With the way times are going, that’s almost another way of business for the BIPOC community, but in order to be a part of it, you have to have broadband.

For example, we’re to the point now that some of the grocery stores want farmers to send them an email in the morning letting them know what the farmer is going to have that day. My father would type it up on a typewriter and mail it to them. By the time the grocery store gets it, somebody else might have sent in what they had and outbidded us because we don’t have internet.

If the Farm Bill could help us access better Broadband, people would be able to have a better understanding about local and fresh produce and where it’s grown. People want to be able to see what we’re doing. They ask, “Can we see it? Do you have a website to show us?” Having functioning internet and a website would be a total game changer, especially in the cooperative movement.

If communities like ours aren’t prioritized in the Farm Bill, it’s going to be a slow demise. It would send us back to the drawing board, trying to squeeze six quarters out of a dollar to keep the work going. We can’t totally rely on these programs because we don’t know which way they’re gonna go. We have to remember to cooperatively work together in community to try to push the priorities to the best that we can. But if we don’t get them, we still don’t give up on our work.

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As a renter millennial, I wanted to start farming. But as Charlotte says in Pride and Prejudice, “I’ve no money and no prospects.” This is a common sentiment among many student-loan-saddled millennials and Gen Z-ers who want to work with the land but don’t have land that they own to start gardening or farming.

It’s no secret that the agricultural industry is facing multiple converging challenges including an urgently looming generational shift. According to the 2022 USDA Census of Agriculture, the average age of a farmer is 58, with organic farmers coming in slightly younger at 52. Only 8 percent of the United States’ 3.3 million farmers are under the age of 35, whereas 14 percent are over the age of 75.

What happens when they retire? 

The other confounding factor is that many young people do not have the financial capital to buy a farm outright. Seventy-two percent of millennials, most in their 30s and early 40s, have non-mortgage debt averaging $117,000. 

Maybe a better question is: How can the next generation afford to farm? 

I was able to find a family on Nextdoor who wanted their backyard to be used, and I now have a mini flower farm in Boulder, Colorado there. It turns out my experience is becoming an increasingly common way to start getting your footing as a young or beginning farmer. I spoke to several first-generation farmers based in Denver and Boulder, Colorado who all had different approaches.

Relationship-Based Land Stewardship 

Amy Scanes-Wolfe runs the 1.4-acre Niwot Homestead in a suburban yard that belongs to a family she found through Nextdoor. “We have never written an agreement or signed documents; no money has ever changed hands,” says Scanes-Wolfe. “We truly have been doing this in a relational way.” The Homestead grows vegetables, herbs, grains, and animals such as ducks, pigs, and chickens. Any farm expenses such as seedlings and irrigation setup are paid for by Scanes-Wolfe, but infrastructure investments that add to property value are paid for by the homeowners. 

Scanes-Wolfe volunteered and worked on farms for several years before posting on Nextdoor and connecting with the landowners. She started small, getting to know the family and just growing a personal vegetable garden. “They wanted the property used, but [they] didn’t have a strong driving vision,” says Scanes-Wolfe. She has been able to take the lead on the vision and growth of the farm. Whenever issues arise, such as the roaming habits of free-range chickens, they all sit down “as humans” to talk them through and come to a solution together. Now, four years later, the Niwot Homestead bloomed from a vegetable garden to a permaculture-inspired and volunteer-run farm, complete with vegetables, perennials, fruit trees, pigs, and chickens. 

Scanes-Wolfe says these types of relational agreements must be centered in mutual respect—for everyone involved and the space itself. However, some people may want a more formal structure. For my own backyard farm, I have a contract with the homeowners that outlines which spaces I can use, who covers expenses, what protections are in place for liability, and other pertinent details.

Speedwell Farm & Gardens started growing in neighbors’ backyards in Boulder as well. It had contracts in place, and it would pay homeowners for city water use by comparing bills to previous years. Backyard farms may need infrastructure for things ranging from drip lines and irrigation systems to hoop houses or greenhouses. Be sure to discuss any infrastructure needs before starting, and be clear on whether you (the farmer) or the homeowner is responsible for costs and installation.

Investing in Real Estate as a Means to Farm 

Jamie and Doug Wickler were engineers, but the 2008 crash made them reconsider career paths. For a few seasons, Jamie Wickler worked at Denver Botanic Gardens farm. “I had aspirations of farming and knew I wanted it to be a family thing; I just wasn’t sure how,” she says , noting that most of the farms she saw had a million dollars of debt or unstable land leases. 

Coincidentally, the Wicklers decided to invest in a rental property as a retirement plan. They had bought their home in 2013, and they secured their first rental property in 2017 (when real estate was more affordable) with help from family and friends. Then came the aha moment—tenants wouldn’t want to maintain a yard, and the Wicklers wanted to farm. 

Wild Wick’s Farm was born, turning the yards at their own home and rentals into a diverse urban farm that grows more than 70 varieties of vegetables and cut flowers. They worked with banks to get a second rental property in 2018 and a third in 2020—all within a mile of each other. 

Tenants agree to not use any pesticides and allow the Wicklers access to the yard. “Most of the tenants really like that we maintain the properties,” says Wickler. “They see it as an eco model that is very interesting.” Plus, having multiple plots is great for their farm management strategy as they rotate crops seasonally to reduce pest pressure and replenish soil nutrients. 

When the Wicklers bought their properties in 2017-2020, real estate was significantly cheaper. Now, real estate prices have risen drastically, so Wickler’s advice for future farmers is to think outside the box. “With different industries that do make money,” she says, “how can it blend with land to make it more lucrative to farm?” 

Leasing Farmland as a Collective

In Longmont, Colorado, Helen Skiba and Nelson Esseveld run Artemis Flower Farm, while Cody Jurbala and Melissa Ogilvie run Speedwell Farm & Gardens. In 2020, the two farms came together to form the Treehouse Farm Collective, a separate LLC that enabled them to put forward a strong proposal for a farmland lease and get approved. Luckily, they complimented each other—flowers and vegetables —and both farms had existing customer bases. 

Skiba started farming in the Peace Corps, coming back and working a small local farm in Colorado where she was introduced to growing and designing with flowers. She moved on to manage a two-acre cut flower parcel at a large market farm for a couple of years. 

Jurbala fell in love with vegetables through cooking, interning at a local farm in 2014, then taking an online urban farming course. That’s where he learned “that land access was the hardest part of somebody starting the farming journey,” and where he realized people’s unmaintained yards were the easiest access point. He used Google maps to scope, cold-called people and eventually found three yards in the same neighborhood to start farming with very little overhead.

However, both farms were on the hunt for a more permanent situation in 2020. “I knew I was going to continue farming, it was just a question of land access,” says Skiba. “So, what can I do? Can me and my husband buy land or afford land?”

After looking at several properties that didn’t work out, she came across a gem of a lease that had everything a farmer would need to get started on the right foot—17 acres with six suitable for farming, a greenhouse, and irrigation pond. But she needed a stronger proposal than just her farm could support. A mutual friend connected her to Jurbala, and the Treehouse Collective was born. Together, they were approved for the lease. 

The collective houses their two farms, and they sublease portions of the property to other businesses, currently a vermicompost venture (creating high-quality compost with worm castings) and a tool library for local farmers. 

They contribute their success to aligned land management philosophies and great communication. Monthly meetings allow for problem solving, but day-to-day conversations keep it harmonious. 

Jurbala highlights that the collective model is great for young farmers. “If you can take away some of the financial burden upfront and have community, that’s a big thing,” he says. 

Ranching on Public Lands 

André Houssney runs Jacob Springs Farm, a regenerative ranch that produces dairy, beef, lamb, pork, chickens, and wheat in East Boulder. Houssney came to the US as a refugee from the Middle East at age nine, growing up in Boulder and working on his neighbor’s farm. 

After college, Houssney worked for nonprofits and started successful agricultural businesses supporting farmers in Africa. When he returned to Colorado, he was able to buy six starter acres, but he knew Boulder offered a unique opportunity—the city leases public Open Space land (undeveloped natural areas) to farmers and were looking for the next generation. He steadily grew his business and leased 800 private mountainous acres to graze dry cattle that don’t produce milk. For years, he applied for Open Space leases. 

“It wasn’t adding up,” he says, explaining that after each losing bid, he’d ask how to improve and get contradictory advice. “They continued to give land to the big guys, the old guys, the white guys,” he says, “even though I had the style of regenerative farming that they said they wanted.” 

When asked, Boulder County officials say they do not collect ethnicity or gender data in their proposals, but a representative did say that “a majority of our tenants are what you would likely consider your typical white and male farmer/rancher for the region.”

After years of rejections, Houssney appealed the decision citing inconsistencies in scoring. It was reversed, and he was selected for a 170-acre parcel with a milking parlor—a crucial element for his business to thrive. That was four years ago, but his struggle with bureaucracy is ongoing. 

Houssney’s story is not unique. Farmers of color and land stewards have been subject to discriminatory practices and land dispossession since this country’s inception, and it’s never stopped. In 1920, Black farmers owned 14 percent of US farms, but now, they own only one percent, as the number of Black farmers decreased by 98 percent over the past century. This is largely due to Jim Crow-era policy, the exploitation of heir’s property, which is passed down generationally without wills or titles, and the USDA’s discriminatory lending practices, which harmed BIPOC and women farmers, spurring massive land loss. 

If you’re interested in ranching on public lands, reach out to your city or county to see if they offer public land leases for agriculture. Ranching on public lands is common throughout the West, with the Bureau of Land Management administering 18,000 permits for ranchers to graze on public land, although it is less common to have a city or county lease land. Apply for a BLM lease if you’re in a state with a large amount of federally owned land.

The post How the Next Generation of Farmers is Getting Creative with Land Access appeared first on Modern Farmer.

How to start farming if you have access to land

FARMING YOUR OWN LAND: 

First you need to figure out the logistics:  

How much usable space you have. Determine the scale it can support and if that’s enough for your goal. Will you need to scale? How might you do that in a way that you can afford? 

Figure out your water access/irrigation. Look up whether your area has water usage laws (common in drier climates) and if it’s enough to support your needs. Experiment with water catchment systems such as rainwater harvesting or creating swales to reduce your costs and reliance on city water.

Will you need to work around a job? Think about what you need to have in place to integrate a farming job into your lifestyle. 

How profitable do you need to be to continue farming? Brainstorm ways to get there—through farm stands, markets, specialty crops, workshops, alternative farm-based income streams, etc. 

Determine if you will need labor support for tasks or markets.

IF YOU WANT SOMEONE ELSE TO FARM YOUR LAND: 

Alternatively, you may have a large yard and want it to be used for agricultural activity, but you are unable to run a farm yourself. You can offer it up to be used by someone else, and in return get an abundance of vegetables or flowers! 

Use community and social networks to your advantage. Ask around to find the right person to tend your land. Nextdoor, Facebook, your local farming community, or local National Young Farmers Coalition chapter are great places to start. You may even contact your city to see if there are organizations promoting urban agriculture that you could connect with to find a land tender. 

Discuss the following questions with anyone who might farm on your property: 

• What are their land management practices? Do you feel comfortable with how they will be using your property? (For example, will they use chemicals, tillers, etc.) 
• How often will they be there? Oftentimes, some farm work needs to be done in the wee hours of the morning when it’s cool. Have a conversation about what that might look like for it to feel good for everyone involved. 
• What areas of your property will they be able to access? 
• Will they be able to use city water or is there another water source available such as a well? 
• Will you create a contract? Will you charge a rental fee or payment for water? Or will you allow everything to be used in exchange for some of what they’re growing? 

How to start farming when you don’t have access to land

Lean on your community, first and foremost. There are a lot of people out there who want to support local agriculture, and also don’t want to do yard work! Be sure to discuss upfront, in as much detail as possible, your vision for the space and anything you need to be successful. And just like with any relationship, this will take work! Practice clear and compassionate communication, and learn how to properly address and work through conflict. 

First, gain some experience. Apply for positions at local farms, start volunteering in community gardens—anything to help you understand what a successful farm needs. You’ll learn so much about seedling care, planting, caring for crops, harvesting, and marketing without having any personal risk involved. 

Use community and social networks to your advantage. Ask around to find someone who is willing to share their land. Nextdoor and Facebook are great places to start. 

Use Google maps and “cold call” neighbors with large yards. Write a nice letter and drop it in their mailbox, leaving your contact information so they can reach out if interested. 

Figure out what funding you need. Realistically, how much capital do you have or can you access to start farming? While you can do it in a lower-cost way, you will still need supplies, tools, seeds, and more. Can you use savings, or will you need to borrow or raise money? Costs will vary with scale, but having a good understanding of this before diving in is crucial. 

Discuss your land management plan with the land owners. While this may evolve and change, have a good idea of how you will care for the space. 

• How long do you expect to use the space? What are your expectations or desires for scaling over time, and will that affect your use of the land? 
• Are you willing to sign contracts or come to other forms of agreement? 
• Will you use chemicals, or grow organically? If using synthetic chemicals, which ones? This is especially important if they have children or pets. 
• Will you need to till or implement any infrastructure? 
• Who will pay for what? For example, investing in things that will stay onsite permanently may be a shared expense. But infrastructure such as irrigation systems or drip lines that will only be used for farming may need to be an expense covered by you. 
• Will it just be you on the property, or will others be involved (such as volunteers or paid labor)? 
• Do you need liability insurance to cover your business and avoid personal risk? 
• What boundaries (physical or relational) need to be in place to ensure that your crops are not damaged by kids, pets, visitors, toys, etc.?

Do you have other tips to share?  Let us know in the comments!

The post Backyard and Urban Farming: How to Start—Whether You Own Land or Not appeared first on Modern Farmer.

“Our vision is a strong, resilient, environmentally sustainable and equitable local food system,” says Virginia Ortiz, GoFarms executive director.

Ortiz sees GoFarm’s role as a hub that takes care of the logistics of supporting small farms and feeding the community. 

Building community partnerships is a crucial element, and GoFarm works with other food access organizations such as Hunger Free Golden and JeffCo Food Policy Council to reach more people and create a broader base of resources.

Founded in 2014, GoFarm started with its local food share program (essentially a CSA curated from multiple farms). More than a decade later, it has become an organization that trains and develops beginning farmers and creatively tackles the problem of how to get affordable, fresh food to the community. As a nonprofit, it is able to fundraise for grants and donations to support its programming and supplement that with revenue generated through produce sales. 

GoFarm’s incubator farmer program gives beginning farmers access to a quarter acre of land for the two-year duration of the program. The farmers receive all the training they need to plan, plant and manage a farm—regardless of their background. 

“The average age of current farmers is 55 to 59, and we know that, over the next 10 years, half of current farmers are going to retire, which means that we need to develop a new base,” says Ortiz. But she points out that there is a “tremendous need” for agricultural education.

“Part of our goal is to change the paradigm of farm ownership. Currently, in Colorado, there are approximately 34,000 farms and only one percent are owned by people of color. Yet, 95 to 98 percent of farm workers are people of color, primarily Latinos,” says Ortiz, who shares that she comes from a long line of farmers and farm workers. She says she is proud that, in the farmer development program, 50 percent of participants are people of color, 65 percent are women and 40 percent self-identify as LGBTQ+.

Moses Smith of Full Fillment Farms was an engineer who had gardened before taking GoFarm’s 20-week course and joining the incubator program. “The important thing was the Whole Farm Planning course that really focused on what it takes to actually grow food,” says Smith.

“One of the biggest benefits is that they not only provide us with land access, which is very hard as a starting farmer, but they also give us a market avenue,” says Ann Poteet of Three Owls Farm. As incubator farmers are establishing their businesses and learning how to generate their own markets, they sell produce back to GoFarm. 

GoFarm’s local food share program feeds anywhere from 500 to 800 members each summer. Members come every week to pick up their share from a few different locations where GoFarm has refrigerated shipping containers to store food after it’s delivered by farmers. Plus, GoFarm takes Chuck out and about in Denver and Jefferson counties every week to ensure they can reach underserved populations that are challenged with food insecurity, disability, transportation and other barriers, such as the communities living in designated food deserts in south Golden. 

“I have an interest in nutritional insecurity,” says Poteet, who was a nurse practitioner before starting her farm. 

“It’s been really inspiring,” says Smith about being able to see his food nourish the community through GoFarm. 

But farmer’s market prices can be high, as producers need to be fairly compensated for their labor and costs. “Customers were clear to us that having access to healthy food was critical to them and affordability was a barrier,” says Ortiz. So, in 2022, GoFarm found the funding it needed to implement a new solution that goes even further to improve accessibility for the 2,600+ households it reaches. 

Customers at its mobile markets can choose from one of three price tiers to shop that day, depending on their needs. For example, bags of mixed greens have three prices listed: $2 (purple), $3 (green) and $4 (orange). And the microgreens are even cheaper, at $1, $2 or $3 for a box. Pasture-raised eggs can be $3, $5 or $7 a carton. 

“You are what you eat,” says Kaylee Clinton, a first-time GoFarm mobile market shopper. “I just feel better about myself when I eat fresher.” As inflation has hit grocery stores, she says that SNAP has helped make food more affordable and she appreciates that GoFarm lets shoppers pick their price point. “I really love it. I think it’s great for everybody.” 

“Typically, I either buy green or orange. I like buying orange when I can. It’s good to have the flexible pricing,” says Ed Gazvoda, who has been shopping at GoFarm for years. “I want to live a good, long, healthy life, so it’s a personal thing, but I just love the food.”

Jess Soulis, director of the Community Food Access program, highlights that accepting SNAP’s DoubleUp Food Bucks—where shoppers essentially get a 50-percent discount—is just one way to make food more affordable. The group also partners with WIC’s Farmers Market Nutrition Program, where participants get a credit to shop. Through its market locations at Littleton Advent Hospital and Juanita Nolasco Senior Residences, the program offers shoppers $10 worth of produce for free. SNAP/DUFB account for 13 percent of its mobile market sales, but all of these incentives combined are closer to two-thirds.

“We’re building this beautiful, vibrant, local food system and we don’t want to replicate the injustices and inequities that are so prevalent in the existing food system,” says Soulis.

The vision continues to grow. The only limitation? “Infrastructure,” says Ortiz. GoFarm is currently seeking out refrigerated warehouse space along the I-70 corridor between Golden and Montbello. 

“That area is important because we need to make it accessible to farmers along the Front Range,” says Ortiz. “With that refrigerated warehouse space, we could easily source from more farmers, distribute more food and serve more communities.”

The post Meet the Nonprofit Training Farmers and Feeding a Whole Community appeared first on Modern Farmer.

As a host to the larvae of the endangered Fender’s Blue Butterfly, Kincaid’s lupine was declared a threatened species under the federal Endangered Species Act in 2000. Only found in small areas of prairie grassland west of the Cascade Mountains, Mallonee Farms is the northernmost epicenter for the lupine in the US. 

All across North America, endangered plant species and wildlife are struggling to survive on agricultural land. The United Nations Environment Programme has pegged the global food system and its encroachment on wildlife habitats, along with its use of fertilizers, pesticides and other chemicals, as directly threatening 86 percent of species at risk of extinction worldwide. In the United States, more than 50 percent of threatened or endangered species are vital pollinators such as the Fender’s Blue Butterfly. Without pollinators to fertilize berry crops, orchards or field crops such as squash, all of us eaters are also endangered. But, it’s not always easy for growers to identify those species at risk on their properties.

Until its discovery in 2004 by an eagleeyed employee of Washington State’s Department of Natural Resources cycling past one of the farm’s pastures, Maynard Mallonee had no idea the lupine on the family property was endangered.

NatureServe is a US-based not-for-profit organization that acts as a clearinghouse for biodiversity data. Through remote sensing such as wildlife cameras, collaring of wildlife, satellite imagery, drones, geographic information systems (GIS) and on-the-ground eyewitness observations, analysts can predict where wildlife and plant species at risk might be on agricultural land. 

Compiled into maps, the information is used by government agencies such as state departments of natural heritage, fish and wildlife services, conservation organizations and individuals across North America to tailor responses that support at-risk species. These might include, as in the case of the Mallonee Farm, adopting rotational grazing practices or, in other instances, altering haying schedules. But nothing is full-proof and the surveying of private land is, after all, voluntary. 

“We can’t survey everywhere,” says Regan Smyth, vice-president of conservation and science for NatureServe, “which makes a lot of things hard to know.” 

She also admits that when it comes time to do on-the-ground surveys to verify the predictive data, growers can get a little ornery about sharing information. They worry about the inconveniences it might cause to production. After the lupine was discovered on the Mallonee family farm, the Department of Fish and Wildlife told Maynard Mallonee to come up with a rotational grazing plan for his cattle that protected the lupine.

“It’s big government telling you what to do,” says Mallonee, “and if you don’t do what they want, they can make life difficult.” 

For the most part, Smythe says people managing land care about it and want to do the right thing. “Once people understand working lands need to be part of the picture of how we keep a diversity of life on the planet, then those who might in other circumstances not want people traipsing around their property become collaborators with Natural Heritage programs,” she says.

In Utah, the Wildlands Network uses mapping data to predict the migration corridors of wildlife. Hunter Warren is engagement coordinator for the organization and concurs with Smythe that there can be a mixed reaction from landowners when they learn that a migrating herd of mule deer, for example, will be stomping through their property. But once they learn that any adjustments needed to support the wildlife, such as replacing barbed wire fencing with fencing that won’t snag and harm an animal, will be paid for by the organization, they become more receptive.

Migrating herds of deer or elk, for example, can, through their grazing and trampling of the ground, break down organic matter into the soil, releasing nutrients that benefit crop production. Plants such as Kincaid’s lupine through their root systems create pathways in the soil that allows for enhanced water filtration and carbon sequester. 

Bryan Gilvesy is CEO of the Alternative Land Use Services Program (ALUS), a non-profit organization working to help fund grower’s initiatives in six Canadian provinces and in Iowa that protect species at risk. He relates how in Southern Ontario a farmer discovered his hay field was home to 250 bobolinks, a bird assessed as being of special concern in Canada by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada and listed under the Species at Risk Act. A ground nesting bird, the bobolink prefers grasslands and prairies to lay its eggs. As more land is converted for agricultural use, the bobolink’s traditional nesting areas have become endangered. Combine or tractor harvesting destroys eggs and can even result in the deaths of birds. ALUS worked with the farmer to alter the haying schedule so that the fledgling bobolinks had time to grow. 

“The farmer got a more mature hay crop and was rewarded financially,” says Gilvesy.

A report by The American Farmland Trust has concluded that managed agricultural land can support both food production and wildlife. It advocates for a broader approach to mapping biodiversity on agricultural land and enlisting the help of farmers and ranchers to do it with policies that embrace the USDA’s legacy of voluntary, incentive-based and locally led conservation. 

On the Mallonee farm, the latest mapping shows a 33-percent increase in the lupine’s population. And although the farm’s grazing plan is having to be constantly updated and re-filed with the Department of Fish and Wildlife to accommodate the spread, Mallonee is happy he took the time and effort to protect the plant. 

 “In the beginning, maybe I might not have,” he says. But, without question, Mallonee is happy he did. The benefits of taking action to protect the lupine have been worth it. “The dairy farm is better managed through the rotational grazing methods we’ve developed,” he says.

The post A Win for Growers Who Protect Biodiversity on Agricultural Land appeared first on Modern Farmer.

There was just one problem: Lewis and Barker could not afford to buy the farm or the land on which it sits—that is, until they worked with an agricultural land trust.

What is a land trust?

Land trusts can be non-profit conservation organizations or, in some instances, government bodies that work to conserve agricultural land in perpetuity.

Without farmland to grow crops or ranchland for livestock, we don’t eat. Conserving farmland underpins a stable local food supply. Without agriculture, jobs are lost; 22.1 million full- and part-time jobs were related to the agricultural and food sectors in 2022, which equals 10.4 percent of the total US employment. Keeping farmland in farming is crucial for our food supply and food security, and it’s why the American Farmland Trust (AFT), a national conservation organization, advocates for keeping farmers and farmland together. 

The AFT predicts that more than 300 million acres of farmland and ranch land could change ownership within the next two decades, with some of it transitioning out of agriculture use permanently. As retiring farmers exit the field, they are looking to the equity they’ve built up in their land on which to retire. That can be a significant sum, something that young or new farmers may not be able to afford. (According to the USDA’s 2022 Census of Agriculture, farmers under the age of 35 account for only nine percent of all producers.) But real estate developers can afford it. 

“Between 2001 and 2021, the country lost 11 million acres of agricultural land,” says Jen Dempsey, director of the Farmland Information Center and senior advisor for the AFT. “Development,” she says, “remains the most significant and direct threat to farmland.” 

Ben Miles, is the Southeast Program manager for Land Trust Alliance (LTA), a member organization with 950 land trusts nationwide. “Most farmers and ranchers could find a buyer willing to purchase their property and develop it, whether into 10-acre ranchettes or 1/8-acre lots,” he says. 

A land trust is able to purchase land outright, remove the development potential and then lease or sell the land back to a farmer. It is also able to help a beginning farmer if the selling price being asked by an existing farmer is too high. 

Community land trusts retain ownership of the property while the farmer pays a tenancy back to the trust to farm the land. But this can be a mixed bag. The farmer owns the buildings and the equipment, but not the land. 

[RELATED: Q&A: How Community Land Trusts Help to Preserve Farmland]

“Farmers look at their property values going up to retire,” says Lewis. Without value in the land, it becomes difficult for the farmer to gain equity or retirement savings. 

How do land trusts work?

By far the most popular way a land trust works is through the purchase of a conservation easement: a legally binding agreement between a land trust and a property owner, designed to keep farms and ranches conserved for agricultural use in perpetuity. 

The land is first appraised without any conservation restrictions placed on it. This is generally the higher value of the land with zoning and development potential attached to it. It is then appraised with conservation restrictions placed on it. The difference between the two values represents the “easement” value of the property. In 2022, the AFT and the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service sent out a survey to land trusts across the US. The majority of respondents to the survey, 88 percent, reported conserving 5.9 million acres of farmland and ranchland through conservation easements. 

In the case of Oyster Bay, the former owners sold the easement value of the property to Community Farmland Trust. They were then able to retire, having leveraged the equity in their property. Lewis and Barker were able to buy the more affordable property without the development rights attached. Since 2018, they have been producing and selling free-range chicken eggs and meat on the farm’s idyllic 40 acres.

“The fee interests—the dirt, the soil, the property—are in our names,” says Lewis, while the conservation easement is in the land trust’s name. The property owner, in this case Lewis and Barker, retains ownership and usage of the land—such as the right to continue farming or to raise livestock. The legal agreements governing an easement are extremely comprehensive including the buying and selling of the farm property. “Easements can be amended and altered slightly, but it can be a very challenging process,” says Lewis. As a general rule, once the land is conserved and the easement filed with the land records office, it is binding and travels with the property for all current and future owners. Even if Lewis and Barker sell the property, the conditions and restrictions on the easement remain in place forever. 

But nothing is perfect. “The easement in our situation reduced the overall cost of the initial purchase in 2018, but now, as property values overall have risen, the land is worth almost the same as before the purchase,” says Lewis.

This is a concern for Lewis and Barker, as they wonder what will happen when it’s their turn to retire and pay the land forward. Their daughter currently does not want to farm. So, will the property again become unaffordable?

Lewis also cautions that land trusts can be complicated legal quagmires and that those entering into a trust should have tempered expectations. Lease agreements, inheritance regulations and the shared responsibility of land stewardship between the trust that owns the land and the farmer can take time to work out. It took Lewis and Barker more than three years to finally have everything in place. All three parties involved (the sellers, the land trust and Lewis and Barker) needed to work out the details of the sale and conservation restrictions being placed on the land. The land trust had to do land surveys and environmental assessments to obtain a grant that let them purchase the easement. “It all takes time,” says Lewis.

How can farmers get started with land trusts?

For farmers looking to conserve their land in a trust and for young agrarians interested in acquiring farmland, the AFT’s Land Transfer Navigators program in partnership with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service is a good place to start.

“Some land trusts,” says Miles, “also have programs connecting new farmers with retiring farmers, through Farm Link programs, or run incubator or community farms, so they may be able to directly help new farmers get access to land and to get their business started.”

Land access and the ability of young farmers to be able to purchase land is a pressing problem that could be addressed in the upcoming Farm Bill. The Increasing Land Access, Security and Opportunities Act is one of several bipartisan bills addressing the issue. Led in the House of Representatives by Joe Courtney (D) from Connecticut, Zach Nunn (R) from Iowa and Nikki Budzinski (D) from Illinois, it hopes to prioritize projects that give direct financial assistance to farmers, involve collaborative partnerships and transition farmland from existing producers to the next generation.

“We are in a land access crisis,” says Lewis. “As farmers get older and look at how they can retire, we need all the options on the table.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story stated that land trusts are legal agreements administered by non-profit conservation organizations. The conservation easement is the legal agreement, while the land trust is the organization that holds or owns the easement. 

The post Holding onto Farmland, One Conservation Easement at a Time appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Witt’s home in South Egremont is a scant mile from Indian Line Farm, the nation’s first CSA; together, the pair of plots represents 28 total acres stemming from another of Witt’s passion projects. Since her founding of the nonprofit in 1980, the Community Land Trust in the Southern Berkshires (CLTSB) has been creating lease agreements throughout the region, aimed at enabling occupants to build wealth (including equity in their improvements) on community-owned land—with the goal of creating an equitable, regenerative future for all. 

We spoke with Witt about the role community land trusts stand to play in the future of farming, especially as access to affordable farmland continues to dwindle. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

HVS: Let’s start with the basics. What is a community land trust?

SW: A CLT is a nonprofit, regionally based organization with open membership that acquires land, by gift or by purchase, creates a land-use plan that reflects needed land use in the community—from creating workforce housing and securing low-cost land access for farmers to keeping retail space locally owned—and embeds social and ecological objectives for each site.

HVS: How does a community land trust differ from a conservation land trust? 

SW: While conservation land trusts focus on keeping lands in their natural state, the CLT model deals with working lands. Its goal, to take the cost of land out of access to it, is achieved by leasing community-owned land at a very affordable rate for purposes described in a land-use plan. 

Community land trusts are organized to give equity in buildings and other improvements on the land, which are owned by the lessee, while conservation land trusts generally exclude housing and/or other buildings. 

[RELATED: Holding onto Farmland, One Land Trust at a Time]

HVS: What does this community-based approach aim to do?

SW: Achieving long-term security for farmers is among the biggest benefits of community land trust ownership of farmland. A lease, coupled with ownership of outbuildings and improvements including soil improvements, means farmers own all of what they put into their operation. When compared with handshake agreements and short-term leases, this model ultimately positions farmers to apply for grants unavailable to those without land security. 

Preserving farmland in perpetuity is another major benefit. Take Indian Line Farm, for instance: when founder Robyn Van En died unexpectedly in 1997, that farm could have easily been sold as another second, third or fourth home in the Berkshires, and a prime, fertile tract of bottomland for local agriculture would have been lost. Instead, the local community land trust raised donations to purchase the land value; the Nature Conservancy (which owned abutting wetlands) purchased an overall easement; and two local farmers—who had been working the land but lacked the assets to purchase the farm— took out a mortgage to buy the buildings. They have since paid back the debt of the mortgage; improved the house and the barns; built greenhouses and have a thriving business that provides food to local markets and consumers. 

HVS: What are the roadblocks here? What’s keeping more land from being used in this way?

SW: There’s a lot of farmland out there, much of which is tied up by easements and commodity crops—which neither fosters access for the small, diversified farms needed to strengthen the local food web nor does it enable housing on site for the farmer, which is critical. When farmland and housing are combined, it creates a farmstead providing land security and housing security for our small farmers. We’d like to encourage more cooperation between community land trusts and conservation land trusts in securing farmsteads. Conservation land trusts can play a key role in developing land-use plans with ecological considerations.

HVS: What can people do in their own communities to address this issue? 

SW: While the importance of donating “the back forty” (a remote piece of land that has yet to be cultivated) to conservation land trusts is well understood, we seek to encourage the same understanding of how to make donations of working lands—with buildings—to community land trusts. This practice allows donors to remain aligned with their priorities (to help local growers bolster the food supply, for instance) rather than risk leaving property to another type of nonprofit [that] might sell the donated land and buildings to the highest bidder in order to raise cash for other uses. It’s pretty powerful. 

HVS: What can I do today? 

SW: Learn how local land trusts are leading the way in conservation by discovering the active land trusts in your state. Join your community land trust and be a voice there. For a modest annual fee, everyone is welcome to exercise their civic engagement and participate in a community-led solution.

The post Q&A: How Community Land Trusts Help to Preserve Farmland appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Singer’s respect for soil inspired her to found Carbon Sponge, an interdisciplinary platform that honors this threatened resource by cultivating healthy soil to foster carbon sequestration. “Carbon sponge” is a term usually used to describe healthy soil that absorbs and retains water; Singer found it aptly described the subject and actions she wants to cultivate. 

Fighting climate change

Greenhouse gas emissions, which result from high levels of atmospheric carbon, are a critical cause of climate change. That systemic shift is responsible for weather patterns, such as periods of intense drought or rain, imperiling all aspects of life, particularly our food supply. Yet agriculture in the United States is responsible for about 10 percent of the country’s emissions and food production accounts for more than a quarter of global emissions, when factoring in the larger food system, including packaging and transportation. 

Carbon storage is an important tool in combating climate issues because sequestered carbon produces fewer emissions. It also improves soil’s fertility, its structure for conveying nutrients and capacity to retain water. Healthy soil is more productive and leads to better growing and farming outcomes.

Singer hopes to fight climate challenges and generate a societal shift in which decisions about land use practices, such as fracking, are thoughtfully made to support humans and other species that rely upon the ecosystem. Carbon Sponge, she says, is “part of our nature-based solution[s] to our man-made problems.”

Anybody who is interested—urban, suburban or rural gardeners and farmers or any land stewards—can participate in Carbon Sponge. Singer has written a manual, “Carbon Sponge Guide: A Guide to Grow Carbon in Urban Soils (and Beyond),” available on the Carbon Sponge website. It explains how to assemble a toolkit of inexpensive, easy-to-purchase-and-use instruments to test metrics such as the fungal to bacterial ratio, which indicates soil’s ability to provide hospitable conditions for carbon storage. Chapters discuss how to monitor and teach children about soil and to design a carbon sponge. An educator at heart, Singer wants to offer tools to teach people to develop new ways of thinking.

Putting soil first

Centering soil in conversations is at the heart of Carbon Sponge. “First of all, asking, what does soil need? Which I think is an interesting question unto itself,” says Singer. “Then also, ‘what can we learn from soil?’” 

Farming methods over the past 50 years, such as growing monocultures and fertilizing depleted soil to prop up the system, are shortsighted, says Singer. She wants to invest in rather than impose on or extract from soil. “If you’re just looking at a yield and how much you get on the land, then you’re not understanding the complex systems that support the growth of that plant and future growth,” she says. 

Singer is notably not a scientist. She’s an award-winning professor of New Media at SUNY Purchase where she teaches Dark Ecology, a class closely aligned with her work in the ecological art space. It explores what it means to be human in the age of the Anthropocene, reading theorists, she says, who straddle art and science and think about how those disciplines can help people interrogate and rethink humans in relation to soil, microbes and the food we’re growing. Singer’s work, at the intersection of technology, art and social change, has been exhibited at MoMA/PS1 and is in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art. 

After participating in collaborative art projects involving food waste, Singer wanted to learn more about soil. She also wanted to transform that waste into a rich resource. Those interests led her to co-found La Casita Verde, a community garden in South Williamsburg, Brooklyn. 

Singer had worked a lot with data collection, visualizing data in her art practice and generating data in various projects. Learning that the soil had to be tested for lead, a common contaminant in urban soil, prompted her to wonder what it was not being tested for and what would be useful to the soil. “What other kinds of data could we collect in the garden,” says Singer, “that kind of filled out the story about soil?” 

Group effort

Carbon Sponge, formed to explore regenerative agriculture in urban gardening, incorporates art, scientific research, data collection and agriculture. For its initial project in 2018, Singer, as designer in residence at the New York Hall of Science, assembled soil scientists, artists, agroecologists, urban gardeners, landscape designers, government agencies and corporate funders. The goal: to find out how carbon cycles in urban soils and if it was possible to grow soil organic carbon in urban soils in the same way that happens in native rural soils. “I was very interested in making an aesthetic and pleasing experiment so that people would be pulled in by it and want to be in this space and start to learn and ask questions with us,” says Singer. 

Urban soil is very different from rural soil, which is much less disturbed by humans. So, the experiment combined “technosol,” also known as human-engineered soil, a mix of sediment and compost, in different ratios. It demonstrated that soil organic carbon could be developed in urban soil.

The findings are important because the sediment, previously considered waste, can now be considered a resource, opening up new potential for use in ecosystem services and regenerative agriculture. A paper detailing results is currently under peer review. 

Singer’s integrative, collaborative approach and activist streak are influenced by her time at Carnegie Mellon University, where she earned her MFA. There she co-founded Preemptive Media, a collective of artists, computer scientists and roboticists who explored the then-new field of human and computer interaction. She enjoyed being part of a group that “included people who knew how to build projects both in the physical and technological sense and create projects that were bigger than one person,” she says, “and often with an eye towards inclusion, participation, transparency and building a better world with more of a democratic input.”

Carbon Sponge now also encompasses scientific research, Singer’s art practice, a farmer-to-farmer network called Carbon Sponge Hub (located since 2022 at White Feather Farm in Saugerties, New York, where Singer is the director of Farm Innovation), and a yearly soil fest there. 

Last year, 10 small area farms participated in the Hub, which includes professional lab testing to substantiate kit results. Planning for 2024 is underway, with intentions to scale up production from a hand-harvested-and-winnowed operation to a machine-driven one, to formally verify the kit, thanks to a USDA grant, and to explore culinary uses.

The Hub is also growing sorghum alone and in cover crop mixes for a scientific study to determine if sorghum can be called a “New York climate-smart plant.” The nutritious grain from Africa possesses numerous agronomic and sustainable properties that can help soil store carbon. It is drought resistant and produces a significant amount of plant biomass, which can be used by farmers to nurture the land. Notably, it efficiently photosynthesizes more “exudates” (“basically, liquid carbon,” explains Singer) into the soil through its vast root system, which helps microbes multiply, building soil health. Hub farm Zena Farmstead reported a 50-percent increase in microbial biomass in its experimental plot from its first to second year of participation. 

Looking ahead

Current generations may not see the benefits of this work; carbon sequestration can take many decades. But Singer is undeterred. “This provides one model,” she says. “We have to be on soil time, which is very different than human time. Both should be part of the solution.” 

Carbon Sponge is modeling new ways of thinking that are necessary for human survival. “We can’t get ourselves out of this problem in the same way we got into it, with extractive capitalists and profit-driven systems,” says Singer. “I’d like to think of this as a different way forward.”

***

You can find Singer’s manual, “Carbon Sponge Guide: A Guide to Grow Carbon in Urban Soils (and Beyond),” on the Carbon Sponge website. It explains how to assemble a toolkit of inexpensive, easy-to-purchase-and-use instruments to test metrics such as the fungal to bacterial ratio, which indicates soil’s ability to store carbon. 

The post Sequestering Carbon Is Not Just A Science But An Art, Too appeared first on Modern Farmer.