Access to land is one
of the biggest challenges for beginning farmers (BF) in New England. In this
project, Land For Good, its partners and 40 collaborators enabled over 2,800 BFs to access land or improve their tenure
situation in six New England states. Our goals were to: improve BFs’ readiness
to successfully access land to farm; enable effective farm succession and
transfer to BFs; improve how BFs find and evaluate farm properties and connect
with landowners; educate professionals and BFs about innovative approaches and
methods; and strengthen programs that help BFs access land and improve the
conditions for farmland access in New England and nationally.
Through coordinated teams and task
forces, we developed a curriculum for our 3-session Succession School conducted
in six states for 18 farms. We launched an innovative online Build-a-Lease tool and updated
our 8-module online Acquiring Your Farm course. We produced a
comprehensive Farm Access Guide and decision tool explaining and comparing land tenure methods. We produced a land access guide for
commercial urban farming, a farm property posting guide, a Farm Succession School instructors’ manual, 11 fact sheets, and a blog report on affordable farmer
housing.
We conducted 46 land
access and transfer workshops for 2,536 trainees, and a 2-day cross-discipline succession professional training for
attorneys and other advisers. LFG provided direct “coaching” to 887 farm
seekers, landowners and transitioning farmers.
We improved the region's farm link
programs, revamped our regional online New England Farmland Finder Farm Transfer Network of New England websites. We held three
project convenings for over 40 collaborators. In cooperation with USDA, we held
a national conference in June 2017 for 220 service providers, agency personnel
and advocates from 40 states. A conference report summarizes collected policy and
program suggestions for all regions.