Columbia land Conservancy Farmer Landowner Match

Climbing Tree View

I was interviewed this week for an article about land conservancy farmer/ landowner match programs. Here is. Our farm buying story: About six years ago we were living at the farm where my grandmother grew up as caretakers. The barnyard around the big old barns that my great-grandfather had worked were chest deep in grass and the condensation from the grass was threatening to kill the barns. We acquired some sheep to eat the grass, one thing lead to another, and we found ourselves in the market for our own farmland. For six years we scoured the conventional real estate market to no avail. When you buy a home for a family you can make sacrifices in your ideal environment in a way that you can't when you buy a home for a farm. For example, our farm had to have a south face, it had to have a water source, be close to a slaughter house, be close enough to outlets for our products, and have a mixture of pasture and woods. We found the Columbia Land Conservancy through friends who farm, and didn't look into the farmer/ landowner match program for months. The first farm we looked at is the one that we bought. because people at the Conservancy works with farmers regularly they knew how to help u s find land suitable for our type of farming and were able to recommend unconventional financing avenues for farmers. It was SO wonderful to work with an organization that "got us." It was sad for us to move off the land that my family had lived on, and farmed, for one hundred years(a story for a different time), but it has felt wonderful to move onto the previous owners' family land. Selling through the Conservancy to a farmer Is a way to pass a special piece of land on to people who will cherish it and know the land deeply (tenants of any good farmer's job). There seems to be constant discussion about how to draw young people out of cities and back to small towns, and about lack of employment opportunity for People coming out of college today. In our little town there are several new small farms run by just those young people, a few of whom found their land (bought or leased) through the Conservancy. The community surrounding the small farms in our town is beautiful and alive, and there is now healthy, delicious food in a town often referred to in the past as a "food desert." In short, if you have land that you are thinking about leasing or selling, consider contacting your local Conservancy. Your land will be cherished. Your community will be alive. You (and generations to come) will have good things to eat. For more information about the Columbia Land Conservancy: