Our Good Work, Summer 2024

From the Executive Director

Sometimes in summer it gets quiet at Land For Good as farmers are beyond busy, partners are enjoying vacations, and events slow down. Not this year! Our team is tackling strategic planning, a 20th anniversary, and continued requests from the field for assistance.

As you likely know, farmland access challenges just continue to exacerbate, and we’re hearing from farmers year-round about their land access needs and concerns. Whether their lease fell through, climate change has shifted their plans, or an available farm plot has suddenly disappeared to someone with more financial resources. This summer, we’re showing up to write policy briefs, present at summer events, and fielding more inquiries. Read more in this issue:

• Celebrate with us on September 25th to mark 20 years
• See what's happening in your state
• Make updates to a farm succession plan regularly
• Find farmland (or a farmer!) with New England Farmland Finder
• Addressing power in farmland access, tenure & transfer
• Inspiring & assisting power shifts in the food system

Coming soon! I am proud to be leading the board and staff through an intentional visioning period to determine the organizations’ future direction. We are grateful for the time to take a deep look, learn, and think strategically. We’re excited to share our updated strategies this fall.

It is an honor to be recently named Executive Director of Land For Good. The energy and dedication of this team, and our partners, makes our ambitious mission possible. Thank you for joining us in our continued efforts to expand secure, just, and equitable farmland access and transfer!

With appreciation,

Shemariah Blum-Evitts

Executive Director

Make updates to a farm succession plan regularly

As he looks toward retirement, Mike Smolak has done a lot of succession planning over the years. He knows personally that a farm transfer can take months, even years, to plan and complete. Over the years, he's made necessary updates to his plan for Smolak Farms in North Andover, Massachusetts that has been in his family for three generations. Read Smolak Farms' story

“So few farmers have done their business planning or succession planning. We can’t afford not to do this work,” shared Mike.

This winter we'll host a training on farm succession planning for exiting farmers as well as the junior generation. Request updates to learn more details!

Find resources for transferring a farm

Find Farmland! Find a Farmer!

New England Farmland Finder (NEFF), the region's largest farm link website, was recently upgraded to include full site translations and enhanced functionality.

Farm seekers can now create a profile and include a short pitch to property owners. You can search more than 70 current farmland properties and subscribe for alerts to see when new properties are posted. Landowners can post a property to NEFF at no charge and get in front of over 4,400 farm seeker subscribers who are looking for land. You can also use the farmer database to find a farmer for your land.

Managed by the New England Farm Link Collaborative, this site is a partnership of farm link programs and land access services in New England, including Connecticut FarmLink, Maine FarmLink, Vermont Land Link, and Land For Good.

Addressing power in farmland access, tenure & transfer

To ensure that a diverse new generation of farm seekers has access to land, service providers have a pressing need to support and educate landowners. This work is crucial to our collective goals of creating a thriving and just food system. At the National Farm Viability Conference in West Virginia this spring, we reconnected with and met new partners, and reflected on the challenges and motivations for the work we all do.

Rachel Brice, Land For Good's Program & Development Manager, helped lead a conversation about addressing power in farmland access, tenure, and transfer with partners from American Farmland Trust, California FarmLink, and O’ahu Agriculture and Conservation Association. Their session provided a structured space for service providers to discuss the ways their organizations have been grappling with questions of power and race in their farmland access, tenure, and transfer work--specifically the concentration of land, farmland, and wealth in white communities.

Learn more

Inspiring & assisting power shifts in land access

We recently released the Toward Land Justice guide, motivated by our work with white landowners seeking to do something with their land to advance social justice. Co-written with the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association, this guide was reviewed by land access and agricultural professionals, farmland owners, and farmers of color.

Toward Land Justice grounds us in history, invites us to reflect on guided questions, and explores options for making farmland available. It provides a basic overview for landowners to start thinking about what they can do on and with the land in their care toward repairing past harms and promoting equity and opportunity. This guide is a living document; we welcome input for future revisions and new resources. We hope this guide will inspire and assist white farmland owners to partner with farmers and communities of color to access land.

Get started with excerpts & additional context for this guide

Pictured in header: David Fisher, farmer and co-owner of Natural Roots Farm in Conway, MA, shares his land access journey in a special video to mark our 20 years.

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