Keeping Farmland in Farmers’ Hands

AFT’s Brooks Lamb, author of Love for the Land: Lessons from Farmers Who Persist in Place, recently spoke with Anna about farm succession planning and creative approaches to securing the future of agriculture.

Why did you become interested in this work? What led you to pursue it in the Midwest?

I grew up farm-adjacent. My mom was raised on a farm in Indiana, and although the farmland was rented out to another farmer by the time I was born, visiting the farmhouse and hearing her stories sparked my curiosity about agriculture. That curiosity deepened in college when I spent a summer working on a diversified vegetable operation outside Louisville, Kentucky. Waking up at 5 a.m., working alongside a team and caring for the land—those experiences stuck with me.

I went on to earn a master’s in food studies and sustainable agriculture at Chatham University in Pennsylvania. After graduating, I became the Farm Director for a K-12 school system in Pittsburgh, where I taught students about food systems, ran a farmers’ market, grew produce, cared for chickens and led cooking lessons. When the program was cut due to Covid, I transitioned into organic certification. I worked one-on-one with farmers in the Midwest, helping them get certified. That role deepened my understanding of the challenges farmers face here and the importance of supporting them directly. Now with AFT, I’ve returned home to Indiana to be near family, and I’m grateful to continue this work in the region that helped shape me.

Farm transfer and succession planning are big issues in your home state of Indiana and across the Midwest. Why is farm transfer so important?

Farm transfer is incredibly important. Across the country, 300 million acres could change hands in the next 20 years due to the aging population of farmland owners. In Indiana, the average farmer is 56 years old, and more than a third are 65 or older. Other Midwestern states share similar statistics. Yet most aging farmers don’t have a succession plan in place.

Without intentional planning, we risk losing much of this farmland to non-farm uses. Even though the Midwest is often seen as the heart of American agriculture, we’re facing major real estate development pressures. AFT’s report Farms Under Threat estimates Indiana alone could lose 450,000 acres of farmland by 2040. That’s equivalent to 2,200 average-sized farms. Much of that land is “Nationally Significant,” meaning it’s among the most productive and resilient soil for local and regional food systems.

The pressures to convert land are rarely stronger than at these moments of generational transition. And once a farm turns into a warehouse or sprawling subdivision, it’ll never be a farm again.

What’s at stake here isn’t just land. It’s local knowledge. It’s rural economies. It’s the ability of aspiring farmers to secure land.

Farm transfers are also inherently complex. They involve emotional, financial and logistical challenges. Retiring farmers must meet their economic needs, achieve non-monetary retirement goals, find the right successor and navigate family dynamics.

Meanwhile, the next generation struggles to access affordable land, especially if they don’t inherit property or generational wealth. But I’ve also seen how powerful it is when land is protected and passed on with care. That’s why there’s such a need for thoughtful, creative planning—so farmland stays in farming, and the next generation has a real chance to cultivate their own space.

You’re involved in AFT’s Land Transfer Navigators project. This project, which is funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, seeks to address some of the challenges you just described. What have you been doing in your role as a “navigator”?

The navigator role is multi-faceted. I spend a lot of time working one-on-one with either beginning farmers looking for land or aging farmers who are retiring and thinking about a farm transfer. Since succession can be overwhelming and emotionally complex, my job is to help people feel supported and grounded in the process. That might look like walking through planning workbooks, sharing budgeting or leasing resources, setting achievable and incremental goals or preparing for tough conversations with family or business partners. I can also help make connections. Recently, I introduced a beginning farmer outside Indianapolis to a local land trust they were interested in partnering with.

What did the process look like with that beginning farmer?

I started by reaching out to the land trust, which is Wood-Land-Lakes Resource Conservation and Development. I explained the beginning farmer’s situation and made sure they had the capacity to support them. Thankfully, they were on board and eager to help. Once that was clear, I connected the farmer with Wood-Land-Lakes, and they set up an initial call.

The farmer was really interested in learning more about agricultural conservation easements, which are legal agreements that permanently protect land for farming. But since the farmer didn’t have a lot of financial capital, they were also hoping to explore other ways to limit development around their land. The land trust offered a few ideas and shared some helpful resources, which the farmer is now reviewing with their lender.

Anytime I work with a farmer, my goal is to make sure they’re aware of all their options. Conservation easements, for instance, are great, but they are just one tool in the toolbox. It’s ultimately up to the farmer and their family to decide what’s best for their land and their future.

That’s a great point. It sounds like these one-on-one consultations are helpful for farmers. Are you doing any other work as an AFT Navigator?

I help organize quarterly forums for ag service providers like attorneys, appraisers, lenders and others who specialize in succession and land transfer across the Midwest. These are great spaces to swap knowledge, share resources and strengthen our regional networks. Our most recent forum, which was virtual, focused on managing conflict, something that comes up a lot in succession planning. Land transition conversations can be charged, full of strong feelings and economic hurdles, so managing these conflicts—whether the farm transfer is within or outside the family—is essential.

I’m also excited about a series of in-person workshops I’ve been collaborating on across Indiana, which have been led by Partners IN Food and Farming with support from Purdue Extension, Indiana University and Shirley Heinze Land Trust. These workshops cover the basics of succession planning and conflict management, and they feature farmers sharing their land access stories. Our Northern event happened earlier this spring, and our Southern and Central Indiana workshops wrapped up a few weeks ago. It has been really energizing to be in community with so many people passionate about land access and farm succession.

What stories from farmers attending these events stand out in your mind?

One family that joined a recent workshop really stood out: a mom, dad and their adult son. The parents are still actively farming the family land in southern Indiana, while their son lives in the city and works as a pharmacist.

At the start of the workshop, we asked everyone to introduce themselves and share what brought them there. When it was his turn, the son talked about all the core memories he had growing up on the farm. He described how much he cared about its future and his desire to keep the land in agriculture. Later, when we shifted the conversation to communication and conflict, the mom shared how moved she was by what her son had said. She admitted that she’d never heard him express how much the farm meant to him. She had always assumed he wasn’t really interested in the farm and had been nervous about bringing its future up.

It was such a powerful moment, watching multiple generations begin to really hear each other and realize that the assumptions they’d been carrying might’ve kept them from ever having that conversation. Moments like that are what makes this work so fulfilling.

Those are the kinds of breakthroughs that can happen when families start farm transition conversations instead of continuing to put them off, especially if they’re given some tools and strategies to help them along the way. Is there anything else you’d like to share?

I want to say how inspired I am by the growing number of farmers thinking creatively about succession. Earlier this year, I attended a virtual field day hosted by University of Minnesota Extension on non-traditional farm transfers, and I had the chance to chat with a retiring farmer about their succession plan. Their partner had worked full-time off the farm, so they didn’t need to rely on selling the land to fund retirement. Instead, they wanted to use their financial privilege and freedom to support the next generation of farmers, through ideas like farm incubators, community land trusts and mentorship programs.

The more I hear from farmers in the Midwest and elsewhere, the more I see people reimagining what legacy looks like and prioritizing the needs of future farmers. It’s encouraging to know so many people are thinking outside the box and working toward solutions that will help evolve agriculture.

If you are a farmer and want to learn more about farm transition planning and the Land Transfer Navigators project—or even if you’re not a farmer and would just like more information—please visit https://farmland.org/land-transfer-navigators.

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Brooks Lamb is the Land Protection and Access Specialist at American Farmland Trust. He is the author of Love for the Land: Lessons from Farmers Who Persist in Place.