Welcome to a toolbox for farmers looking to access farmland. If you’re a beginning farmer exploring your options to get onto land, or an established farmer ready to expand, relocate or rethink your land situation, this toolbox offers guides, worksheets, articles and other resources to inform your decision-making and guide your planning and search for farmland. If you are not yet farming, you’ll want to prepare and develop a plan before you even begin searching for land. Materials are most relevant to farming and farms in New England, but many may apply elsewhere.
Where to Start if you don’t have (much) farming experience
AgPlan. Powerful website to help you generate a draft business plan with customized templates and sample business plans for ideas. University of Minnesota.
New Farmers Discovery Tool. Personalized search for new farmers, women in agriculture, young farmers, veterans, and new generation seeking land. USDA.
FarmAnswers.org. Programs, resources and comprehensive library to help you get started farming, as well as tools to help more seasoned producers succeed. University of Minnesota, funded by USDA’s Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Grant program (BFRDP).
How To Find, Assess and Secure Farmland. Plain language guide to help you understand the process of locating and securing farmland. Plain language provides clear, clear, straightforward, and accessible text to help you confidently act upon what is learned. Land For Good and New Entry Sustainable Farming Project.
¡Nueva!Cómo Encontrar, Evaluar y Conseguir Tierras de Cultivo. Una guía de lenguaje llano.
Successfully Acquiring Your Farmland. Article focuses on what to consider to successfully acquire your land, written for the Beginning Farmer Network of Massachusetts.
Acquiring Your Farm 2.0, Online tutorialfor farm seekers with lessons and worksheets on seven land access topics to help you assess your situation and systematically develop an action plan.
Explore strategies to access farmland
Farmland Access in Urban Settings. Suggestions, examples, and innovative models to help farmers negotiate land to farm in and around cities.
Webinar: Finding Your Farm (NH)
Explore ways new farmers can find available farm properties in New Hampshire, and options that may be available to aquire farm real estate such as leasing, a purchase, or other innovative ways. UNH Extension.
Webinar: Affording Farmland.
Learn the mechanics behind accessing and affording farmland, from the most basic lease or purchase, to some of the more innovative methods farmers are using to secure their land tenure.
Affording Our Land. Financial literacy guidebook on various land access methods for new farmers. Greenhorns.
Finding Farmland Calculator. Mortgage calculator for determining financing options and creditworthiness when buying farmland. National Young Farmers Coalition
Finding a Farm to Buy or Lease.
Basic information with resources specific to New York State. Cornell Small Farms Program, Northeast Beginning Farmers Project.
Equity Trust. National non-profit organization helping communities to gain ownership interests in land and other local resources, as well as alternative ownership structures for farms.
Farmland Purchasing Basics.
Answers to the most common legal questions around purchasing and financing farmland. Farm Commons.
Search for land using farm link programs
New England Farmland Finder. Free website to post or search for farm properties for sale or lease, covering all six New England states.
New England Farm Link Program Guide. Guide explains New England’s four farm link programs – Vermont Land Link, Maine Farm Link, Connecticut Farm Link and New England Farmland Finder – and what they offer.
New England Farm Link Collaborative. Organizations helping build awareness, farmer and landowner readiness, and connections among farm seekers, farmers and landowners of all types in all New England states.
Additional Strategies To Find Farmland. Tip sheet for preparing for your land search. Your chances of success are greater if you use a multi-pronged approach.
Webinar: Conducting a Farmland Search.
Understand the process, strategies, and tools available as you search for farmland including farm linking sites, soil analysis, affordability calculations, and methods for evaluating land and infrastructure.
NRCS Web Soil Survey. Website considered the single authoritative source of soil survey information. USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service. See also Using the NRCS Web Pages to Get Soils Information, a guide for using NRCS Web Soil Survey website. Maryland FarmLINK Guide.
UC Davis SoilWeb.
Interactive map allows you to explore USDA-National Cooperative Soil Survey data for locations throughout most of the US. UC Davis, NRCS. See also this introduction to the tool with tips from our staff.
GranitView. New Hampshire’s Statewide Geographic Information System of topographic maps including soils, flooding hazards, water resources, and more. University of New Hampshire. See also this introduction to the tool with tips from our staff.