Episode
The Hidden Work of Keeping Farmland in Farming
- Podcast
- One Bite is Everything
- Published
- Apr 16, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 2205
- Processing state
not_requested- Canonical source
- https://www.onebiteiseverything.com/
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Summary
There are about 2 million farms in the United States. Every year, a significant number of the farmers running them are approaching retirement age with no clear plan for what happens to their land when they're done. Farmland doesn't just disappear when a farmer retires. It gets sold, subdivided, converted, or absorbed into larger operations. And in a lot of cases, that means the end of a working farm, a community food source, and sometimes four generations of family work. In this episode, Dana sits down with Molly Johnston Heck and Olivia Fuller from American Farmland Trust's Farmland for a New Generation program, a New York State initiative that connects retiring farmers with the next generation of land stewards. Olivia isn't just a program staffer. She's a fourth-generation farmer who used AFT's own tools to navigate her family's transition out of dairy and into direct-to-consumer beef, pork, and sheep. She knows this story from the inside. They cover: What conservation easements actually do (and what they don't) The Farmland Protection Implementation Program and how it puts real money in a farmer's hands Preemptive purchase rights and why they matter in high-pressure real estate markets like the Hudson Valley The land-linking platform connecting farmers who have land with farmers who need it Why a "bad match avoided" counts as a success The invisible crisis of farm transitions that wait until there's a foreclosure to begin The role of navigators, mediators, and social workers in the hardest conversations farm families face This episode is a companion to a fuller story Dana is building. If you're a farmer thinking about what comes next, or a landowner who wants to see your land stay in production, this conversation is for you. Resources mentioned: Farmland for a New G…