Marginal farmland lies in a blurry area near the residential and commercial real estate markets.

California has the largest population of Asian American farmers and ranks third in the nation of Hispanic farmers, yet data from the 2012 census shows that farmers of color tend to farm smaller farms.Ĭhart 2: Building A Future With Farmers II These small-scale, diversified farmers follow in a long tradition of niche producers adept at adapting small tracts of precarious, marginal farmland to their unconventional production needs, particularly farmers of color. For renters, they’re facing farmland lease rates that double every ten years and short-term leases that make it difficult to make long-term investments in infrastructure and beneficial ecosystem management practices. Our forthcoming California Young Farmer Report indicates that of all respondents who own their farm operation, only 27% own land. Relative to multigenerational farmers, first-generation farmers work on smaller tracts of land-more than 80 percent of first-generation young farmers work on farms smaller than 100 acres, with about half working on farms smaller than 10 acres (see Chart 2). Our 2017 survey of American young farmers, the results of which are compiled in Building A Future With Farmers II, found that 75% of young farmers are first-generation farmers. Yet farm property values alone are not always a good gauge for judging farmland affordability for beginning farmers. And though I hear that from farmers everywhere, Californians may “win” here.Ĭalifornia has just about the most expensive farm real estate (which includes land and buildings) in the nation (see Chart 1 below). Their primary challenge is the high cost of farmland.

Spanning from San Diego to Mendocino County, this “whistle stop workshop tour” opened my eyes to the vast range of land access challenges endured by California’s beginning farmers. At one point, it even stopped raining long enough to catch a view of this rainbow over the ocean: The workshops were focused on sharing practical strategies for finding secure, affordable land tenure, as well as introducing farmers to useful tools- including our Finding Farmland Calculator-that can help with financial planning. At the start of February, I had the privilege of spending a couple weeks in California, organizing five Finding Farmland workshops for young farmers in partnership with our California team and California FarmLink.

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