Working in partnership with land protection leaders across the United States, American Farmland Trust announced a new “Land Transfer Navigators” program.
It’s a partnership with the Natural Resource Conservation Service that will help existing farmers and landowners retire with confidence and help new, beginning, and underserved farmers gain secure, equitable land access. Nearly 300 million acres of American farmland are expected to change hands in the next 20 years. As aging farmers exit the field, the future is uncertain for about one-third of the country’s farm and ranch land.
“Farmland is most at risk of conversion during generational transition,” says AFT President and CEO John Piotti. “With the wave of transfers coming, we risk losing far too much farmland to low-density housing, subdivisions, and strip malls.”
Land Transfer Navigators will build bridges between incoming and outgoing farmers, leveraging land protection as a strategy to facilitate successful and affordable land transfer.
