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Land Access and Leasing

Acquiring Your Farm
Land For Good has developed this free online course, designed so that each learner can come away with a customized farm acquisition action plan.

Beginning Farmers: Finding Land
An expansive list of further resources pertaining to land acquisition.

Farmland Access Legal Toolkit
This toolkit is created by The Center for Agriculture & Food Systems at Vermont Law School. It explains legal arrangements that provide farmers more affordable and equitable farmland access and help landowners balance earning income for retirement with making their land affordable to the next generation of farmers, and makes useful information available to farmer and landowner advocates.

New England Farmland Finder
(NEFF) connects farm seekers to available farm properties for purchase, lease, or other arrangement. Landowners or their representatives can post properties at no charge. Farm seekers can search for free and subscribe for weekly updates on new postings. NEFF is managed by the New England Farm Link Collaborative of Maine FarmLink, Connecticut FarmLink, Vermont Land Link, and Land For Good.

New England Land Link
The New England Small Farms Institute’s continuously updated classified listing for property available in Massachusetts and greater New England.

Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources Agricultural Preservation and Restriction Program
This Program intends to offer a non-development alternative to farmers and other owners of “prime” and “state important” agricultural land who are faced with a decision regarding future use and disposition of their farms. They do this by offering to pay farmland owners the difference between the “fair market value” and the “agricultural value” of their farmland in exchange for a permanent deed restriction which precludes any use of the property that will have a negative impact on its agricultural viability.

Massachusetts Land Trusts
Massachusetts Land Trust Coalition provides a forum for the exchange of ideas and information, to increase the effectiveness of Massachusetts land trusts in working with the state legislature and environmental agencies, and to promote high professional standards.

USDA: Transitions Incentives Program
USDA announced recently the launch of a program intended to provide incentives to landowners who lease or sell their land to new farmers. It’s called the Transition Incentives Program (TIP), and it provides financial incentives to retiring farmers whose land has been enrolled in a Conservation Reserve Program IF they lease or sell their land to a new producer. An interesting feature of the program is that it doesn’t require the beginning farmer to have any particular level of experience to qualify.

Land For Good
An organization that works with farmers and community members to secure farmland access, and to facilitate farm transfer planting, land planning and farm use agreements.

Successful Farm Transfer Planning
This guide as part of the Land Access Project assists senior farmers who don’t have a successor lined up to take over the farm.

Farm Succession and Transfer: Strategies for the Junior Generation
This guide as part of the Land Access Project helps the next generation farmers get the farm transfer process going on their family farm operation.

A Team Approach to Farm Transfer Planning Assistance 
This guide as part of the Land Access Project is for service providers who work–or who would like to work–with transitioning farm families.

USDA: A New Generation on the Land
A collection of resources dealing with land tenure, land access, and land transition.

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