In Service to Beginning Farmer/Rancher Land Access: An Expanded and Independent Community of Practice for Managers of Land Access Policy Incentives

View the project final report

Commodities

Practices

• Education and Training: extension, mentoring, networking
• Farm Business Management: land access
• Sustainable Communities: leadership development, public policy

For over two decades, the North Central Region (NCR) has been a national leader in pioneering public policies to invest in beginning farmer/rancher (BFR) land access. State and federal innovations operating throughout the NCR and beyond incentivize landowners to choose a BFR as the next operator or owner of their farm or ranch. Each of these public policies is passed by a legislature and then often interpreted and implemented by a lone manager working in rather isolated conditions. The target audience for this PDP will be these professional public servants who manage Land Access Policy Incentive (LAPI) programs out of state departments of agriculture or community development, finance authorities, or other public and non-profit agencies. This PDP aimed to reinforce the professional development of ag service providers who work in the LAPI space either because they manage a LAPI on behalf of their state or because they were engaged in improving a federal LAPI whose uptake has been highest in the NCR. The PDP award’s first purpose was to reinforce a young, established Community of Practice made up of state LAPI managers, and to augment the members' capacity by: (1) convening them for three in-person conferences and trainings, and (2) extending their funding for facilitated virtual gatherings by one year, for a transition towards self-governance. The award’s second purpose was to similarly augment the collective and individual capacity of FSA cooperators engaged in improving a federal LAPI, CRP-TIP, through an in-person convening and their participation in the American Farmland Trust and National Agricultural Land Network Saving America’s Working Lands conference. Service to these networks of land access professionals will lead to these outcomes: (1) learning leading to action: LAPI managers and cooperators will bring innovations and improvements learned from their peers home to their states, strengthening their service to farmer/ranchers and landowners; (2) smoother new policy liftoff as more states introduce LAPIs; and (3) sustained motivation of LAPI leaders and cooperators who become able to support one another and contribute to the land access movement as coordinated peers.

Products developed

The routine products the PDP developed include a series of eight virtual meetings of the LAPI Community of Practice (CoP) and their agendas, meeting notes, and recordings. Conversations during these meetings guided the development of public materials for the online Farmland Information Center for CoP members to use to promote their LAPI programs.

The PDP award convened the CoP for conferences of the National Council of State Agricultural Finance Programs (NCOSAFP). These gatherings involved presentations by members of the CoP as well as NCOSAFP conference content tailored to the CoP. Programming produced included:

• 2023: To continue to develop CoP members’ familiarity with the broader land access movement, we delivered an interactive seminar about the national land access and transfer curricula our PDP partners at American Farmland Trust have led since 2017. The training provided hands-on tools focused on paths to land access as well as the communications skills pivotal to land access and transfer agreements.
• 2024: A series of year-long facilitated conversations towards the process of becoming self-governing. Year two of the PDP focused on the pilot CoP transitioning into a self-sustaining model, and, with an external consultant,prepared conference, meeting, and training content to serve this objective.
• 2025: An in-person convening with attendance in American Farmland Trust’s Saving America’s Working Lands conference, and two conference sessions. Products included a series of presentations from each cooperator organization and the outputs of a facilitated discussion using Ketso. Conversations during this meeting guided the development of public materials for the Farmland Information Center for cooperators and agricultural professionals to use to engage with the federal LAPI, CRP-TIP, and advocate for other federal land access programming.

A final set of outputs reflect the products of the CoP network. These outputs will involve the members’ interactions and dialogue with one another.

With the help of a facilitator and the NCOSAFP, the LAPI CoP members chose to sustain their Community of Practice beyond the PDP award through a collaboration with the NCOSAFP.

Priority participants: CoP members

• State LAPIs:
  • Beginning Farmer Tax Credits: 
    • Iowa Finance Authority (Tammy Nebola and Nicki Howell)
    • Minnesota Department of Agriculture (Jenny Heck)
    • Missouri Department of Agriculture (Kate Haarmann and Jill Wood)
    • Nebraska Department of Agriculture (Holle Evert)
    • Ohio Department of Agriculture (Jessica Neff and Todd Thacker)
    • And the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development (Tim Back), Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture (Stephanie Shirk) and Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development (Christine Jacoby)
  • Easement incentives: Hilary Aten and Dan Schilling (WA), Jimmy Kroon (DE), Steve McHenry and Allison Roe (MD), Stephanie Shirk, Cheryl Cook and Neil Imes (PA)
• Federal LAPI:
  • USDA: Sarah Campbell, Amanda Robertson, Cara McNab and their appointees
  • Kansas State University (Ashlee Westerhold)
  • Center for Rural Affairs (Cynthia Farmer)
  • And Adrian Parrott (NM), Andrea Rivera (TX), Russell Bean (AL), Jewell Bean (AL), David Martin (AL, GA), Frances Martin (AL, GA)