The Next Generation of Farmers

Guest Opinion

By Payge Lindow | April 8, 2023

The farm bill, the biggest piece of federal agriculture policy that impacts what we grow and eat, is on the docket in Washington D.C. this year.

What is the farm bill? Passed about every five years, the farm bill impacts everything from how food is grown to how families receive nutrition assistance. Everyone who either eats or grows food is impacted by this legislation—so basically everyone! In Congress, the House and Senate Agriculture Committees spend months hearing testimony, deliberating policy impacts, and working with producers and rural communities to address what they need most.

The next generation of farmers is working to make sure our elected officials find solutions to help us grow our profession and help feed and move the country forward. With rapid development and the climate crisis affecting food production, there needs to be change in federal farm policy. What’s clear is that land access must be a priority in these discussions, and we hope Congress will properly fund programs to address this critical need.

There’s a real opportunity to ensure that the needs of the next generation of farmers are met in the next farm bill and that farm bill programs are centered around equity, sustainability, and justice.

For Michigan farmers, but especially across northern Michigan, land access is a barrier to entry into farming. Farmland is being bought by developers to meet the increasing housing demand caused by tourism. The remaining quality farmland is too expensive for beginning farmers to afford, as many of them do not come from farming families or generational wealth.

These farmers are all united by their passion and need for land access programs in the farm bill. I believe our best chance for land access funding is to authorize and fund the USDA Land, Capital and Market Access program in the farm bill, which funds cooperative agreements and grants focused on land access programs, with a focus on supporting what the USDA calls “underserved” farmers.

This program was piloted last fall, but the extensive application and lack of technical assistance made this opportunity available only to larger groups with the time and resources to apply, leaving many farmers who would benefit directly from the program out of the equation. In order to center equity in this program, funds need to be prioritized to center land access for folks who are Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC).

For community-based organizations and farmers to be able to access this funding, technical assistance and outreach need to be included for all USDA programs. There were many applications across Michigan, including efforts to fund land reparations for BIPOC farmers, farm succession, and cooperative-farm learning. The common goal among these efforts is to get land into the hands of farmers, which is impossible if they can’t access these funding streams.

A local example of land return comes from Stillwind Farm. They were founded in 2021 when Mikayla Rowden, a local young farmer, accessed an eighth-acre plot in Muskegon Heights. They quickly outgrew the space, gifting it to a local Black elder, and began looking to expand. Because farmland is incredibly expensive in West Michigan, Rowden purchased a home in Belding with a half-acre covered in shrubbery, trees, and poison ivy. They rented machinery to clear the space and convert it to farmland. Rowden had been working two jobs for five years, never making more than $12 an hour, and this land purchase wouldn’t have been possible without the support from their partner’s off-farm job.

This experience is not uncommon; farmhands and aspiring farmers who want to be business owners don’t have the capital to purchase farmland and struggle to obtain it while working in the food and farming industry. The farmland that is available is at a scale outside of what’s possible for them financially and capacity-wise.

With 40 percent of land about to change hands in the next decade, this farm bill is our last chance to ensure a stable future for farmers and our food supply. The National Young Farmers Coalition 2022 survey found that land access is the top challenge experienced by the next generation of farmers, even more so for BIPOC farmers.

To elevate farmers’ voices on this issue, Young Farmers hosted a farmer fly-in earlier this month, and over 100 young—the majority of which are BIPOC—farmers from across the country flew to Washington, D.C. The group met with 159 decision makers and shared their stories and their struggles while advocating for changes and programs that would support them in the 2023 Farm Bill.

Whether you’re a landowner, farmer, or advocate, you play a part in our broken food system. On a local level, we can improve the resiliency of our food system by supporting farmers, sharing and returning land, and supporting the next generation of farmers. We all have a voice in the systems that must change in order to protect the health of the land, waters, and diversity of crops and peoples in Michigan.

As the Michigan Organizer at the National Young Farmers Coalition, Payge Lindow supports farmers to uplift their voices through policy advocacy. She is a former farm manager and youth educator.