About this episode

This episode discusses the challenges and solutions related to farmland transitions as farmers retire, featuring insights from experts in farmland preservation.

There are about 2 million farms in the United States. Every year, a significant number of the farmers running them are approaching retirement age with no clear plan for what happens to their land when they're done. Farmland doesn't just disappear when a farmer retires. It gets sold, subdivided, converted, or absorbed into larger operations. And in a lot of cases, that means the end of a working farm, a community food source, and sometimes four generations of family work. In this episode, Dana sits down with Molly Johnston Heck and Olivia Fuller from American Farmland Trust's Farmland for a New Generation program, a New York State initiative that connects retiring farmers with the next generation of land stewards. Olivia isn't just a program staffer. She's a fourth-generation farmer who used AFT's own tools to navigate her family's transition out of dairy and into direct-to-consumer beef, pork, and sheep. She knows this story from the inside. They cover: What conservation easements actually do (and what they don't) The Farmland Protection Implementation Program and how it puts real money in a farmer's hands Preemptive purchase rights and why they matter in high-pressure real…

People in this episode

Host: Dana DiPrima

Guests: Molly Johnston Heck, Olivia Fuller

Topics covered

• farmland preservation
• farm transitions
• agriculture
• community food sources
• retirement planning for farmers
• land stewardship

Keywords

• farmland
• farmers
• retirement
• conservation easements
• land-linking
• agricultural transition
• community agriculture

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: American Farmland Trust

Places: United States, Hudson Valley, New York State

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