Changing Lands Changing Hands
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Changing Lands Changing Hands A National Conference on Farm & Ranch Access, Tenure & Transfer JUNE 13-15, 2017 | DENVER, COLORADO Hosted by Land For Good in cooperation with the United States Department of Agriculture Venue Map Welcome Room Abbreviations An enterprising young rancher Contents PS: Prefunction South searches for secure land to grow A: Aspen his business. A senior farming K: Keystone couple anguishes over who will Conference Connections take over their farm. A landowner and her farmer-tenant negotiate over 2 conservation practices. We all know stories like these. Land access and Plenary Panels farm and ranch succession are top challenges for US agriculture. How 3 will our farms and ranches be acquired, held and passed on? What will it take to assure secure and sustainable tenure and transfer for our nation’s Concurrent Sessions At-A-Glance producers and landowners? These questions are of critical importance to 4 the future of farming, food systems and farmland in the US. Concurrent Session Formats We’re here to tackle these issues together. You are among a growing Regional Breakout Sessions group of individuals, organizations, and agencies working on land 5 access, tenure and succession issues. This conference a forum for us to discuss successful and emerging practices, programs and policies. We Concurrent Session Descriptions have much to share with and learn from one another. 6-13 Together, we will: Presenters & Moderators Exchange knowledge, information and research 13-24 Assess what’s going on in the field and what’s needed Attendees Build our skills and networks 25-33 Collect a wealth of ideas, experiences and perspectives Restaurants Transportation We are gathered here from all regions of the country, and from multiple 34 sectors and disciplines. Diversity is essential to solving the complex challenges of land access, transfer and tenure. We’ll consider all types Movie Night and scales of farms, ranches and producers. And we’ll need to address Readers Theater legal, financial, policy and natural resource dimensions, not to mention 35 Schedule family dynamics, values and cultures! Land For Good hosted the first Changing Lands, Changing Hands About LFG & USDA Tuesday, June 13 Wednesday, June 14 Thursday, June 15 conference here in Denver in 2009. Since then, program and policy 36 attention to agricultural land tenure has increased dramatically. With 1:00p | Registration Opens (PS) 7:00a | Breakfast (PS, A:1&2) 7:00a | Breakfast (PS, A:1&2) Committees & Acknowledgements burgeoning interest in farming, growing public interest in food, and a new 37 3:00p | Opening Plenary (A:1&2) 8:00a | Plenary Panel (A:1&2) 8:00a | Concurrent Session 5 Administration, the timing is right for this event. Together we’ll advance Ý Welcome: Land For Good & Chris Beyerhelm, 9:15a | Concurrent Session 2 9:30a | Break (PS) workable strategies for more equitable access to farm- and ranchland, Acting Administrator, USDA/FSA secure and sustainable land tenure, and successful transfer of our farms 10:45a | Break (PS) 9:45a | Regional Breakout Sessions Ý Panel and ranches. 11:15a | Concurrent Session 3 (See p. 5) 4:30p | Break (PS) Thank you so much for your commitment to America's farmers, ranchers 11:15a | Closing Plenary Panel (A:1&2) 4:45p | Concurrent Session 1 12:30p | Lunch & Plenary Panel (A:1&2) and landowners—and for joining us at Changing Lands, Changing Hands. Be Social! 2:15p | Concurrent Session 4 12:30p | Adjourn Welcome, and have a great time! 6:15p | Reception (PS) Join the conversation on Hosted by Colorado Host Committee 4:00p | Break (PS) Twitter or Facebook using: 7:15p | Dinner (A:1&2) 4:30p | Plenary Panel (A:1&2) #LandChangingHands Remarks, Commissioner Don Brown, 6:00p | Dinner on the town Colorado Department of Agriculture WIFI Access 6:00p | Excursion to Comal Jim Hafner, Executive Director Kathryn Ruhf, Senior Program Network: DT 8:45p | Movie Night (K:1) If you pre-registered for this, meet in Director & Conference Organizer Password: 2-JUNE1.5 8:45p | Readers Theater (K:2) front of hotel. Look for signs and a bus. 1 Conference Connections Plenary Panels TUESDAY 3:00p WEDNESDAY 4:30p Picking Your Brains Historic and Contemporary Perspectives on Racial Equity Challenges in Agricultural Farm and Ranch Tenure Land Tenure Changing Lands, Changing Hands brings together national leaders like you who are dealing with land tenure issues. One of our This opening panel sets the stage for our conference US agricultural land tenure has a long and fraught his- conference goals is to collect successful and emerging program, work together. We’ll get grounded with data and tory, especially regarding farmers of color and other practices and policies on our topics. Land For Good will compile analyses from USDA. Then, panelists will share their disadvantaged groups. These panelists bring deep perspectives on the issues. This provocative session subject expertise to shed light on current challenges, what we collect and share it widely in an online report. will lay out values-based and practical challenges that and to provoke all of us to do more to promote equity Please contribute! Here’s how we’re going to gather all this guide–or thwart–our efforts to improve land access, in how all producers access, hold, and transfer farms information: tenure and transfer. and ranches. A scribe will take notes in every session. She or he will collect your Panelists: Neil Hamilton, Drake University Agricultural Panelists; Stephen Carpenter, Farmers Legal Action ideas, models, and practices on a form. Please help them by pointing Law Center, Lead Speaker; Dan Bigelow, USDA/Economic Group; Janie Hipp, University of Arkansas; Shirley Sherrod, out anything they should capture and by giving your name or a Research Service; Savi Horne, Land Loss Prevention Project; Southwest Georgia Project reference so we can follow up if needed. Scott Marlow, RAFI Moderator: Jennifer Hashley, New Entry Sustainable Videographers will be roaming the conference! If you are approached Moderator: Kathryn Ruhf, Land For Good Farming Project by someone with a smart device and an inquiring demeanor, please take a few minutes to share your work and ideas with them in a spontaneous, casual video interview that will be part of our post- WEDNESDAY 8:00a THURSDAY 11:15a conference report. Share your practices, perspectives and ideas to be Equitable partition of land is included in our compilation, with all credit to you. Public Policy Dimensions of Land Access Where to Next? the necessary basis of all self- and Transfer Indeed! These panelists will translate their conference Sticky notes, of course! Listen for instructions to post your practice, sustaining agriculture. This program and policy ideas and accomplishments. Public policies can help advance our land tenure experiences and observations into key takeaways that partition and use of land may objectives or pose obstacles. Where are the promising are sure to inspire and challenge us all. be in the form of ownership levers? What is realistic? What can we do from the Panelists: Poppy Davis, Univ. of Arkansas School of Law; Learning From Colleagues or in the form of right to hold field? These policy experts will talk about the policy Julia Freedgood, American Farmland Trust; Lilia McFarland, the land for a specified time. landscape at federal, state and local levels. USDA; Monica Rainge, Federation of Southern Cooperatives Attendees routinely say that networking is the best part of any The ownership may be of Panelists: Chris Beyerhelm, USDA/Farm Service Agency; Don Moderators: Jim Hafner & Kathryn Ruhf, Land For Good conference. Please take advantage of conference venue space different degrees: the owner Brown, Colorado Department of Agriculture; Cris Coffin, Land For Good; Gary Matteson, Farm Credit dedicated to ad hoc meetings and get-togethers. may have unlimited right to Moderator: Juli Obudzinski, National Sustainable Agriculture Hold a meeting in the Executive Boardroom (capacity 14) any time sell and to bequeath or he may Coalition during the conference. Sign up for a block of time. The sign-up sheet be bound by certain statutory is posted at the Boardroom. restrictions. Likewise, the Hang out with colleagues at the Amberstone Bar and Grill, located rental of land may be of across from the registration table. This casual space is reserved for WEDNESDAY 12:30p (LUNCH) different degrees and kinds, our event. Farmer Panel and in some cases it may The Changing Lands Library Table features resources from your Hear stories from young and beginning farmers and amount to practical ownership. colleagues. Thanks for adding yours. Please pick up your materials ranchers about land access. These inspiring operators at the end of the conference. These varying forms of land from different commodities and regions will share partition have arisen with the about their land tenure path and their perspectives on evolution of society.” what’s working and what’s needed. Panelists: Tess Brown-Lavoie, Sidewalk Ends Farm, Rhode Photo and Video Waiver Island; Harrison Topp, Topp Fruits, Colorado; Dustin Stein, By attending this conference you may be included in video and/or photographs Liberty Hyde Bailey Stubborn Farm, Colorado; Javier Zamora, JSM Organics, taken during the event. As part of your agreement to attend, you assign, transfer and CYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN grant to Land For Good the right to use your image and/or voice for educational and AGRICULTURE, VOLUME IV, California CHAPTER V LAND AND LABOR, 1909 promotional