Protecting the Farm: One Not-So-Small Step
As my family watched family farms in our community being sold and replaced by housing developments, we made an important decision to help ensure the continuation of the farm and its farming tradition. We avoided potential complications by reducing the number of owners.
Reflecting in Late October
As I walked through the woods on my family farm recently, I noticed the leaves of hardwood trees like oak and hickory transforming from vibrant green to red, gold, orange, and brown. The trees hadn’t yet shed their leaves, so I couldn’t yet see the rooftops of houses adjacent to a thin line of woods along the back field.
Soon, the winter winds will blow the leaves away, the trees will stand bare, and the houses will loom in plain sight, revealing what’s been lost.
I can no longer save the forest where a developer built homes more than a decade ago. Their residents no doubt appreciate their surroundings. However, my heart aches as I consider the woodland sacrificed for more houses. What’s been lost is gone, but what can you and I do to help protect legacies that can’t be replaced, including farmland and woodland?
Sweet Potato Field—Photo by Jennifer Love
Facing the Reality of Mortality
In the early months of 2020, with Covid raging and people succumbing to a virus no one seemed to understand, my four siblings and I faced the prospects of what might happen to our farm if one of us were to pass from this life.
The five of us had emotional connections to the farm. We were raised here along with the crops we labored to grow and harvest. As joint owners, we shared costs and decisions needed to keep the farm functioning, but we realized that, without some changes, each sibling’s interest in the farm would pass to beneficiaries, creating additional owners and potential problems.
We had heard of sibling farm owners who quarreled about their farm legacy, who had gone to court and forced distribution of joint family assets by partitioning the farm. We didn’t want such a possibility for our beloved farm. Although it’s not especially large for a working farm, dividing it equitably would be nearly impossible. It has very little road frontage and contains fields, woods, wetlands, and, since the early 1980s, a utility easement with tall towers holding lines surging with electricity, part of a power system that felled hundreds of acres of woods and cut across farmland for hundreds of miles.
Most importantly, we didn’t want to partition or divide the land nor did we want to sell it, whole or piecemeal. For decades, we have anguished over the sell-off of farms in our formerly rural community to developers looking to make a large profit.
Understanding How Farms are Valued
The land is sold based on its “highest and best use” value, determined by its most profitable legal use. For someone looking for an immediate profit in a land sale, the value of land used for agriculture, pasture, or forest doesn’t compare with the “highest and best use” value of the same land used for development. Farmers and heirs sell their farms for many reasons, but usually they can no longer farm the land and need or want liquidity that dirt can’t provide.
Consequently, farms and their ecosystems are disappearing one by one. Most farmhouses in my community and others, where farm families carried out their lives for decades, have been torn down, and surrounding fields that sprouted crops like sweet potatoes and soybeans are now covered in houses.
Making a Choice
Many generations of our family have loved our farm and sacrificed for it. We too worked the land like our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents before us. The farm is our friend and a part of us. We have struggled and sweated on it and laughed and played on it. We know its paths, fields, woods, marshes, barns, and other structures almost as well as we know ourselves.
With support and encouragement from my siblings and our mutual commitment to never sell our legacy to a developer, I became the steward and owner of the farm. Even with the additional responsibilities, I have embraced this role, one giant step towards ensuring that our farm will be around for future generations long after my siblings and I are gone. More must be done for long-term preservation, and I’ll share that story with you in the future.
Looking Ahead
In future posts, I’ll discuss more about the challenges and joys of stewarding a family farm, its woodlands, wetlands, and buildings. Each season brings new experiences and new decisions, adding layers of complexity to taking care of the farm and the land. But the farm and its stories are worth the effort!
