Check Out Your Farmer's NBC Debut!

Click here to read the NBC article.

27 years ago, a cow named Blue stepped off a trailer onto the lush pastures that would become One Straw Ranch.

She became the beloved matriarch of a long and fruitful line.

Last month, her great-great-great granddaughter was on NBC news.

And her great-great-great-great grandson.

Oh, and her farmer, too.

That’s your farmer and my husband, Martin, of course. 🤠

Martin was approached by NBC about a piece exploring the pros and cons of conservation easements on farmland.

It’s an interesting, complex and important topic – how to keep farmland productive and in the hands of farmers. A problem with no easy answer.

We’re sharing it with you today as a topic relevant and of interest to you. Because, as our customer, it directly relates to your food supply.

Besides, it’s awfully fun to see your farmer and his cows on national news.  🤩

What’s a conservation easement, anyway?

Easements come in many forms, but generally it’s where an organization (like our local Jefferson Land Trust) buys the land development rights from a farmer. This gives the farmer immediate cash and ensures that the land will stay a farm. It can’t be turned into a housing development, for instance. This in turn lowers the sales price of the land for a new farmer purchasing the farm.

Why does this all matter?

In the timespan of two generations, farmland has increased in value so much that it’s often no longer possible for the revenue generated by the farm to both pay the farmer and pay down the debt required to purchase it. This puts both the old and new generations in a tough spot. The new generation can’t pay for the farm by farming the land. And the old generation can’t sell to someone that doesn’t have significant outside capital and/or an additional income unrelated to the farm.

The problem continues to grow as a large number of the nation’s farmers are aging towards retirement. According to the NBC article, up to a third of farmland in the US is estimated to change hands over the next two decades. Retirement funds and inheritance expectations are significant considerations.

Conservation easements are one tool being used to bring down the up-front cost, but as land values continue to soar, in some cases it’s not enough. And as the NBC article points out, easements put restrictions on farm usage that can be a hinderance to the next generation of farmers.

How is it relevant to me?

As young (ish) farmers, we find ourselves in the middle of the farmland ownership transfer issue – from multiple angles.

On one side we are blessed to own our own farmland. If you’ve been reading along for a while, you know that for the last 10 years we’ve been living on Marrowstone Island and leasing farmland all over Jefferson County. Just last summer we finally built a home on the piece of land in Chimacum that we are proud to call One Straw Ranch.

This land, now One Straw Ranch and our home, was purchased by my parents 30 years ago. Together with my two brothers and I, they planted many native trees, built fences, planted a bountiful orchard, and shaped the land into a vibrant, productive beef farm. Even though it didn’t have a house on it, we all considered it home – the heart of our family.

Then a few years back my parents, ready to retire, committed a tremendous act of love. Love for their family and the farm. They sold Martin and I the farm, not at the market rate, but at a rate that could be supported by our farm. And my brothers, too, gave great benevolence in their happy consent, which is no small thing.

In this world of skyrocketing land prices, families are breaking up and farms are dying over who inherits the farm – or rather the money from the exorbitant sale price of the farm. When I called my brothers to ask about buying the farm that could be their inheritance, their only stipulation was “as long as we can always come home.” Yes, it will always be home.

Our gratitude is endless. And we cherish the responsibility of tending the family farm as our own. (click here for my post about our family farm)

On the other side of the farmland transfer issue – literally across the fence – we are leasing land that has a conservation easement on it. That is the land featured in the NBC article - the Short Family Farm that was recently purchased by the Port of Port Townsend.

When the Shorts decided to retire, the entire 280 acres had to be sold together due to the conservation easement. That’s a big chunk of land to try to afford at today’s market rate, even with the reduced value due to the easement. Being crazy entrepreurs we actually looked at it, but with the small margins in farming the growth we would have to create to pay the mortgage was staggering. Being concerned about local food resilience, we all worried that the biggest tract of farmland in the county would be sold to someone who would not use it to produce food.

That’s when the Port of Port Townsend stepped in and purchased the farm, in fulfillment of the Port’s century-old mission to support local agriculture, with the intent to make it available to local farms for local food production.

Local small farms couldn’t afford to buy that big of a tract of land, but without the conservation easement, the Port wouldn’t have been able to purchase the farm – it wouldn’t pencil out for them any more than for a farmer.

So as the article points out, it’s a tricky issue. There are many sides to the argument, with many different values at stake. It will definitely be interesting to watch the story play out across the nation over the next decades as communities and individuals attempt to keep farmland productive and viable.

We all need reliable access to clean, safe, nutritious food. For us at One Straw Ranch, that means growing regeneratively raised meat and eggs for you, our neighbors.

As farmers, our business relies on stability in our land base. There are enough variables like weather, disease and market instability to think about; it’s best not to worry whether you’ll have access to the land next year or the year after.

Therefore we’re grateful to have the opportunity to develop a long-term business relationship with the Port, so that we can continue to provide our community with nourishing food that respects the animal while regenerating our shared environment.

And we’ll continue to be part of the conversation around protecting farmland, from all sides of the issue, as we look to the future. We’ve got three little Farmhands in training, after all. 👨‍🌾 👩‍🌾 👩‍🌾

Click here to read the NBC article.