Land Access Q&A
Responses by Addie Candib, American Farmland Trust
American Farmland Trust Report: Farms Under Threat 2040: Choosing an Abundant Future
Land Access Resources
Resources for Financial Readiness:
- National Young Farmers Coalition (Finding Farmland Calculator)
- Northwest Farm Credit AgVision
Resources for Finding Land:
- Farm to Farmer (statewide land-linking program)
Resources for Assessing Land:
- USDA (Web Soil Survey)
- State of WA Dept. of Ecology (water rights search guidance)
Resources for Leasing Land:
- Land for Good, (Build-a-Lease Tool)
Resources for Legal Concerns:
- Farm Commons (developing lease and purchase agreements)
Policy Resources:
- Article: Anti-Corporate Farming Legislation, Center for Rural Affairs
- The National Agricultural Law Center, (overview of corporate farming laws)
- 2023 Farm Bill Advocacy
Land Access Q&A
Q: Clarifying question: Are you saying only a quarter of FARMLAND changes hands on the open market, or a quarter of ALL land transactions?
A: This is from a USDA survey of farmland ownership and tenure (TOTAL survey) done in 2014. It specifically refers to agricultural land, not all land transactions.
Q: How much do incubator farms really improve land access for new/beginning/continuing farmers?
A: Ten to twenty years ago when farm incubators took off, it was an innovative concept that we could use to facilitate access to farmland by providing farmers with land for a couple of years. We have seen that, while incubators are helpful in getting people onto land and gaining experience growing food and running a business, there is a “cliff” that happens when people’s term on the incubator farm is over. We are starting to see incubators around the country thinking about how to make a long-term commitment to help people stay on land. Not all folks running incubators have the funding or capacity to keep acquiring land and making it available for beginning farmers.
Q: I would like to see the landholder have the capability to place their land in farmland reserve status making it economically feasible for the land to be preserved as farmland.
A: There are different ways this can happen; either through zoning the land so it can’t be used for anything other than agricultural purposes, or partnering with a land trust to establish an agricultural conservation easement to keep the land in farmland in perpetuity. There are upsides and downsides to both of these options.
Comment: Many ports own properties and some of those properties have agricultural value for different types of growers/producers (e.g., Port of Chehalis, Port of Skagit).
Q: Do you know of any legislation that would dis-incentivize the speculative purchase of farmland by non-farming groups?
A: There are nine states that have anti-corporate farming legislation on the books. The laws put conditions on whether corporations can own land. Some research from Center for Rural Affairs shows that states with this legislation have less poverty in rural communities and farms show greater returns on their taxes. We don’t have these laws on the books in WA State or anywhere in the Pacific Northwest. Because of political polarization, and how the agricultural landscape has changed in terms of corporate consolidation, it may be politically unfeasible to pass such laws in this state.
Q: Is there any tribal involvement in the agricultural land access conversation?
Comment: Chehalis Tribe leases land to a grain farmer.
A: This is not a neutral topic. Tribal communities in this region were not traditionally agriculturalists but depended on hunting and gathering. Part of the colonization of tribal communities was it forced them into places where they couldn’t rely on their traditional foodways and had to grow food under a colonial agricultural system. So, the assumption that tribes would be interested in leasing land for agriculture in a conventional way is complicated and we have to tread carefully and with a lot of curiosity. There are exciting examples of Northwest tribes doing work around food sovereignty. The Yakama nation is one example, and the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation is another; they are doing interesting work around agrivoltaics (growing food alongside solar panels).
Comments: The Dept. of Ecology Office of Chehalis Basin doesn’t own farmland but we are extremely interested in farmland preservation as ag land and open space. That achieves our objectives of preventing flood damage and preserving and protecting the rural character of the land for the benefit of aquatic species and riparian habitat.
There is helpful guidance from the DOE for people who want to investigate the availability of water for agriculture in different parts of the state.
Q: Can you say more about the Farmland Protection and Affordability Investment Program?
A: There are two new programs in WA. The Housing Finance Commission has a new revolving loan program for land trusts that want to act quickly to protect high-value farmland and take it off the open market. It is called the Farmland Protection and Affordability Investment Program. The timeline for loan repayment is flexible from 1-7 years.
As a companion to that program, the WA State Conservation Commission has a funded account called the Farmland Protection and Land Access Account. The two programs are paired together to offer a tool to allow land trusts to be nimble and act quickly to access a loan to purchase farmland, and then the FPLA covers costs to place an easement before selling the land to another farmer.
Q: Has anyone had success working with local county assessors in identifying land that is in danger of losing Ag Open Space tax status to connect them with farmers looking for land?
A: Note: No one in the session knew an answer to this question. Information about the Open Space Taxation Act can be found here: https://dor.wa.gov/sites/default/files/2022-02/OpenSpace.pdf
Q: Do you know of any models of cooperative farmland ownership?
A: Yes, Land for Good put out a new guide on cooperative land tenure: Accessing Farmland Together: A Decision Tool for Farmers. There is a lot of interest, but the technical assistance community needs to grow our base of knowledge and skills to be able to point people interested in this option in the right direction. After you figure out the financial piece, there is a soft skills component to making those relationships work when people go into farming land together. The hardest part is the social piece. We need to do some work to be able to provide more support for people to be successful in these cooperative arrangements.
Q: There is a lot of development pressure in the Puget Sound area. Are there areas in the tri-state region you cover where there is more affordable property and available farmland, or is this an issue throughout our whole region?
A: This is a common issue. The price of land is higher in Puget Sound than Eastern WA, but the price is going up everywhere. There is a trend of older farmland owners who want to pass their land to the next generation but don’t have someone identified. They want their land to stay in farming but can’t afford to give their land away. There is a huge opportunity there. Farm to Farmer is providing technical assistance to those folks. There are opportunities for creativity, and again, it comes down to those soft skills of facilitating those relationships, partnerships, and the transition of knowledge.