Note: As the Land Stewardship Project gets ready to offer the 2027 edition of its popular Farm Transition Planning Course this winter, organizer Karen Stettler reflects on what she’s observed since we started offering the course in 2016. For more on the 2027 Farm Transition Planning Course and to sign-up as a participant, click here. You can read and listen to farm transition stories here. Check out LSP’s Land Transition Tools web page for more resources.

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The Land Stewardship Project launched Farm Beginnings during the winter of 1997-1998, and I took over directing the program a year later. Farm Beginnings was, and still is, a transformative space for beginning farmers to put together a values-based farm plan and build networks. After several years working with beginning farmers, it made sense to continue that kind of thoughtful investment in both the people and the land when it came to helping retiring farmers take the next steps in their lives, and so we developed the Farm Transition Planning Course in 2016. This course was developed with the guidance of a farmer committee and an idea that, in a sense, people who are seeking land and those who are looking to pass it on to the next generation are speaking the same language as they connect around values of stewardship, community-building, and, of course, farming.

During the past 30 years, it has been an honor to walk through many stages of farming with people. I’ve known farmers who have gone through Farm Beginnings, established agricultural enterprises, and become mentors to a new generation of farmers. Those same folks have then moved into farm transition planning as they wrapped up their agricultural careers. The throughline LSP provides in terms of supporting people while providing resources, community, and space to work through the planning process has been so impactful.

When people come into the Farm Transition Planning Course, they often define where they are in the process of farm transition planning as being in the microbial/seed stage. They express guilt at not having started the transition sooner, are confused about where to start, and express a lot of worry about the future. During the course, I often see these doubts shift. The course features stories from both land seekers and successfully transitioned farmers, and this sharing gives so much more human depth and context to help people navigate their own situations. Creating a safe space to grapple with emotions is just as important as gaining access to a new planning technique or guidelines on navigating legal paperwork; the Farm Transition Planning Course provides both.

Going through a farm transition process is not something that happens a lot in people’s lives — if you are lucky, it will happen only once. Therefore, it is unreasonable to expect people to have all of the knowledge and information at their fingertips. I like to point out that it is okay not to know;  each family does not need to re-invent the wheel. There are so many pieces to consider in a farm transition plan, and helping people understand the complexity and providing some tools and space to dig into hard things like communication and values exploration are some of the most important components of the course.

For me, perhaps the most satisfying part of the course is seeing participants learn how to center their values and articulate them. Such a blossoming can open up people’s choices and provide clarity about the future. The course lifts up “what is best for the land” in addition to all of the other pieces that folks are considering. There is almost always one person in the course who initiates signing up and has drug a reluctant family member into the training. Usually, by the end of the course, the reluctant participant is appreciative of the process and has a clearer picture of next steps and why they must be taken.

It’s very satisfying seeing family members open up and talk to each other in new ways, with different questions and tools that actually help move them forward. They also end up sharing their values and ideas with other course participants and presenters. As with LSP’s Farm Beginnings course and our Soil Builders’ Network initiative, peer-to-peer support plays a big part in the Farm Transition Planning Course.

Here are a few “aha moments” I have had during the past several years leading the course:

• I have seen families who think they want to age in place, but after doing all the work, realize that the way forward is actually selling the farm, and finding release in that decision.
• I have seen people very focused on keeping the farm in the family, but after really processing their values and thinking about what they want for the land, they changed to prioritizing how the farm is stewarded rather than who is on the farm.
• I have seen families who haven’t had many conversations about a possible transition gain the courage to start the process, ask hard questions, and even start seeking a new farmer within the community or beyond to take over.
• I have seen families who thought the transition had to go one way find that in fact the transition could serve values and goals they hadn’t dreamed were possible.
• Through the years, we’ve seen a correlation between planning timeline and the options that are available to a transitioning farmer or farm family. Planning early is key to having desirable outcomes.

I know that if farmers rely entirely on the farm for retirement income, that will limit a lot of options for who will be able to come next. I also know that there’s only so much that planning can address. Inflated land values, thin profit margins in agriculture, consolidated markets, and public policy that works against passing on the farm to a new generation all present daunting barriers. That’s why, besides offering this course, LSP is working on reforming policies, our food system, and even the way we treat our soil.

In the meantime, the Farm Transition Planning Course makes a hard thing less hard. We can’t change or fix everything, but we can bring awareness and new tools, a community to reflect with, and a process to get the momentum started.

LSP farm transitions organizer Karen Stettler can be contacted via e-mail.