FOR ASPIRING FARMERS
How do you become the next farmer on a neighbour's farm when you can't buy it?
By Sam Marwood
Not by buying it outright. When an older farmer nearby has no family to carry the farm on, you start with the relationship, then offer a way onto the farm that works for them too.
Share farming and a flexible lease get you farming while the owner keeps the land. Lease to buy and vendor finance are ways to end up owning it.
Start with the relationship
Help out, listen, and keep the first conversations about their farming history. When it fits, you can ask whether they'd like to stay on while you help with the work.
You don't have to mention ownership yet. For now, the aim is just to get them open to the idea.
Share farming
You and the owner split the costs and the income, so you share the season and the owner keeps the land. In the usual arrangement you fund your share of the inputs before any income arrives, and the farm has to carry two incomes. See how share farming works.
A flexible lease
The rent is a lower base plus a share of the farm's operating profit, so in a bad year you aren't crippled by a payment you can't meet. The title stays with the owner, and there's no way to buy unless you negotiate an option into the lease. See what each side gives up.
Lease to buy
You lease the farm with an option to buy at the end, at a price agreed at the start, and you build equity through your farming profits. If you're leasing first, say up front that you'd like the option. See when lease to buy works.
Vendor finance
This one is a sale from the start. You pay a deposit and the owner lends you the rest, repaid on agreed terms, so you get the land straight away.
How the title moves depends on how it's set up, so ask your solicitor which way yours works. It can work when a bank won't lend, though the rate is whatever you both agree. See vendor finance beside lease to buy.
It has to work for the owner too
The owner gives something up under each way. A flexible lease means they carry part of the season, share farming means handing over day to day control, lease to buy locks them out of any rise in value beyond the price you agreed, and vendor finance leaves their money in the farm until the loan is paid off.
Share farming and a flexible lease don't change who owns the land, so if ownership is your goal, build the way in at the start.
Get it written down
Write it all down, and take it to an agricultural accountant and a solicitor who has done farm transitions. A suburban conveyancer and a general tax accountant are the wrong tools.
If you're share farming, ask whether the agreement creates a partnership. See the questions to ask.
Read more: Can you buy a farm with no money? and How to find retiring farmers looking for someone like you.
This is general information, not legal or tax advice.
The full guide, You Can Own a Farm, is free at cultivatefarms.com/resources.
You can build your own plan at cultivatefarms.com/plan.