All the News That’s Fit to Print: New York Times Op-Ed Piece Advocates for Farmers
A recent op-ed piece in the New York Times winds through the hills of upstate New York looking for a solution to keeping agricultural land in the hands of farmers. “In the next 20 years, 70 percent of the nation’s farmland will change hands.Farmers do not live forever, and most farm kids do not choose […]
Combining Assets and Trust: Waterpenny Farm
This story starts in 1998 when we were both 25 years old and ready to start our own organic vegetable farm. We’d both worked for Chip and Susan Planck of Wheatland Vegetable Farms in northernmost Virginia for a number of years. During our time there we gained the desire to become farmers, as well as […]
Farm Profile: Table Top Farm
Arron Wilder has wanted to have his own farm since he was 19, learning the ropes as a farm apprentice. It’s taken 15 years of looking to create Table Top Neighborhood Farm in Point Reyes Station, CA. “It’s taken a really long time for me to have the right opportunity, the right amount of money. […]
Giving Voice to the Soil
The methods we use to gain attention for agricultural land access must be as diverse as the land we aim to preserve. Doug Nopar, a farmer and program organizer for the Land Stewardship Project, authored a creative dramatization about land gifting called “Look Who’s Knockin.’ The play gives life to the ethics and motives behind […]
Landless Farmers in South America Win Land Rights
After 20 years of struggle and waiting, the families camped out in the municipality of Prado (in extreme south of Brazil’s Bahia state) finally received legal title to their land. The roughly 5,025 acres of farmland has the capacity to settle about 280 families. For members of the Landless Workers Movement (MST), the Rosa Prado […]
Family Farms Still Outnumber Corporate Farms
Cropland Consolidation and the Future of Family Farms by James MacDonald Highlights: During the past three decades, U.S. crop production has been shifting to larger farms for most crops and in most States. Despite the shift, family farms continue to dominate U.S. crop production, accounting for 87 percent of the total value of U.S. crop […]
Talking about Land Succession
Here’s a glimpse into what happened in New Brunswick last month at the Atlantic Canadian Organic Regional Network (ACORN) Symposium. Some words from speakers Jeff Schnurr, Severine von Tscharner Fleming, Mark Bernard and Shannon Jones on “The Quest of Finding Farmland”. Jeff Schnurr -Community Forests International Speaking about: Incubator Farms Thank you to […]
Farm Profile: Food Growing Program
The Food Growing Program started 5 or 6 years ago when the county jail donated ½ an acre of land to the Food Bank for Westchester (NY) as a vocational training garden. A few years later, they acquired another ¼ acre at a school for disadvantaged youth in Yonkers. The focus then was mainly on education […]
Interview with Joel Salatin
The Greenhorns Radio Program covered the ground of agricultural land use and transition with forward-thinking farmer Joel Salatin on the Heritage Radio Network. Salatin described the hurdles for young start-up farmers and offers solutions to the growing problem of the aging farm population. Salatin offers as a case model, the innovation brought forth by young […]
Farm Profile: Champlain Orchards
Bill Suhr and Andrea Scott were not intentionally looking for conserved land when they found the 158-acre parcel that is now home base for Champlain Orchards. The land in Shoreham, Vermont had been Laramie Point Orchard, and was in the process of being conserved as agricultural land by the Vermont Land Trust (VLT) as part […]