STORIES WE LOVE
The retiring owners picked the farmers who'd care for the place
By Sam Marwood
Story from Land For Good, 26 April 2023
Every now and then I find a story that shows exactly what we're about at Cultivate Farms: real people finding a way to keep a farm working and bring someone new onto it. I share them here because seeing it done by others makes it real. Here's one I love.
From Land For Good, 26 April 2023: "A transfer of ownership that's all about farm connection". Read the full story at landforgood.org.
Why I love it
Two people who'd run a herb farm for twenty years were ready to hand it on and had nobody lined up. They worked their way through a planning guide written for farmers with no successor, went to a succession planning workshop, talked to a field agent, and put the property up on a site that links landowners with people looking for a farm.
The response was strong and more than one of them could have done the job. The couple they chose had glasshouse growing behind them, seasons on other farms, and a year on a starter farm program. The new owners say what mattered was the connection to the farm rather than the sale, and that the old owners wanted someone capable of handling it. The place still grows organic food for the same district, under a new name.
Why it matters for towns like ours
Aspiring farmers often assume a farm goes to whoever can pay the most. This one didn't. The people letting go wanted the land looked after and the work carried on, and that's what they chose on. If you're trying to get onto a farm, the thing that got this couple over the line was plain proof they could run the place, and the same care for it that the owners had.
One step you could take
Write down the growing you've actually done: where, for how long, and what you ran. Then say plainly what you'd do with someone's farm and what you'd keep the same. That's what a retiring farmer is reading for. Read how to be the farmer a retiring farmer chooses in our You Can Own a Farm guide.
I share these stories because each one shows it can be done, by ordinary farming families, in places like yours. If you know a story like this, or you're living one, I'd love to hear it.