American Farmland Trust

?? Applications are now open for our 2025 Advanced Soil Health Training in the Mid-Atlantic in partnership with Truterra, LLC, Land O'Lakes, Inc., and Black Family Land Trust! February 3-4, Harrisonburg, Virginia March 5-6, Central Maryland July 23-24, Lancaster, Pennsylvania December 3-4, Eastern Shore Maryland Learn more and apply: https://bit.ly/3VDFxVn. Supported by USDA agreement #NR233A750004G016. USDA is an equal opportunity provider, employer and lender. Additional project collaborators: Maryland Department of Agriculture, Million Acre Challenge , USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, Penn State Extension, VIRGINIA NO TILLAGE ALLIANCE VANTAGE, PENNSYLVANIA NO TILL ALLIANCE, University of Maryland Extension, and Stroud Water Research Center.

As energy projections anticipate 10 million acres of agricultural land will be adapted for solar infrastructure by 2050,?American Farmland Trust’s Smart Solar? initiative?seeks to reimagine the relationship between the agriculture and solar development industries as a partnership, rather than a zero-sum game. Agrivoltaics allows solar panels and crops to share the same land, enabling farmers to benefit from new microclimates that enhance crop resilience and open up additional revenue streams. Farms like Sprout City Farms located at Jack's Solar Garden in Colorado are among those who are exploring this. ?? Read more in Edible Communities below.

??? weather ?? rising costs ?? land access These are some challenges our nation’s farmers and ranchers face daily. Our Brighter Future Fund provides grants to help. Since 2020, the Fund has given nearly $5 million to over 2,000 farmers and ranchers in the U.S. With your support this #NationalFarmersDay, we can help even more. Learn more and donate here: https://bit.ly/4f1YEP4. ?? Polipoli Farms, Hawaii | 2023 Brighter Future Fund grant awardee

We are excited to celebrate #NationalFarmersDay tomorrow with over $700,000 awarded to farmers and ranchers nationwide through our Brighter Future Fund this year! ???? We are deeply appreciative of the support from thousands of individual donors, organizations, and partners Applegate, ButcherBox, Domino's, Giant Food, H-E-B, iHeartMedia, and Olo. Read more: https://bit.ly/3ZWA3Hl Donate: https://bit.ly/4f1YEP4

REGENERATE VIRGINIA Funding Opportunities for Virgina Farmers! 1?? Regenerate Virginia Healthy Soils Grant Program AFT’s Healthy Soils Grant Program, offered in collaboration with the Virginia Soil Health Coalition, encourages producers and partners to pilot impactful ideas that innovatively fill gaps and address barriers to the adoption of soil health-building systems. This program aims to incentivize the adoption of practices and transformation of systems that go above and beyond current standards, supporting farmers, ideas, and expenses that are ineligible for other programs. Awards up to $30,000 for a single producer or $50,000 for a group of producers will be considered. 2?? Regenerate Virginia Farm Vitality Planning Grant The Farm Vitality Planning Grant is designed to assist Virginia farmers in working towards the long-term vitality of their operations, with a particular focus on planning efforts that support the adoption or expansion of regenerative practices and systems. These grants are intended to provide producers with funds to pursue individualized, substantive business consulting services leading to powerful changes in operations. Grants of up to $10,000 will be considered. Learn more and apply: https://bit.ly/3APtImD

We're excited to return to the REGENERATE Conference, happening November 6-8 in Denver, CO! This is a great opportunity for producers, landowners, conservationists, scientists, students, and concerned citizens to come together to explore regenerative agriculture On November 6, our Women for the Land team and our friends from Women Food and Agriculture Network will host a workshop: Building Resilience to Climate Stress Through Shared Storytelling/Art: Workshop for Women/Non-binary Folx. During this workshop, we'll share our work with Iowa women landowners focused on climate storytelling and our Stories of the Season project which is grounded in producer/landowner experiences with seasonal weather and its extremes. Workshop attendees will experience some of the multi-media outputs created within this project. Following our programmatic sharing, we will invite a group exploration of climate emotions and memories as we wade into the complicated emotional territory of living in a changing world that is increasingly out of balance. ?? Join us! Learn more: https://bit.ly/3ZRLZtJ. Can't make it to Denver? Dive into stories of Iowa women in agriculture advancing climate resilience: https://bit.ly/3ZJaveM. Thanks to Quivira Coalition, Holistic Management International, and American Grassfed Association for hosting this conference!

Brighter Future Fund GRANT OPPORTUNITY for livestock farmers in CT, MA, NH, and VT: Grants of up to $10,000 are available to support field-based conservation practice projects that improve soil health, water quality, and pollinator habitat.??????? Learn more and see eligibility requirements: https://bit.ly/3TTGRSa

Our New England staff teamed up with members of our National Agricultural Land Network (NALN), Farmland Information Center, and our Smart Solar? Team to host a robust and information-packed Exhibitor Booth at the Land Trust Alliance’s National Land Trust Conference “Rally” in Providence, RI last week! We had fabulous conversations with land trust staff and conservation advocates from all across the country and were thrilled to make connections and share AFT resources. We also had a full house at our NALN Member Breakfast and got to connect with our fellow NALN members doing innovative farmland protection and access work in their service regions. To learn more about the NALN and to become a member visit: farmland.org/naln.

What is an agricultural easement and what’s an example of one? Since our founding in 1980, American Farmland Trust has helped to protect 8 million acres of farm and ranch land from development and other uses that jeopardize farming. The way we protect this land is primarily through agricultural conservation easements. An agricultural conservation easement is a legal document that ensures that development will never happen on that property. One of the best examples of this kind of conservation is our partnership with the Wolfe's Neck Center for Agriculture & the Environment in Freeport, Maine. “It's the conservation easement that American Farmland Trust holds on the property that gives us and our community, frankly, the reassurance that this property will always be used in the way that the Smith family had intended that it be used,” shares Dave Herring, Executive Director of the Wolfe’s Neck Center. Operating as a nonprofit organization since 1997, and an organic coastal farm for over sixty years, Wolfe’s Neck Center for Agriculture and the Environment is a farm-based education, research, and visitor center set amidst more than 600 acres of conserved open space along Casco Bay in Freeport. The Center works to accelerate change in food systems and mitigate the effects of a changing climate through regenerative farming demonstration and training, innovative research, and collaborations. “Looking ahead, we love being able to walk arm in arm with AFT to try and find solutions to the problems that we're all facing,” explains Dave. ??Learn more about AFT’s land protection efforts here: https://bit.ly/3UkMKZ6 ?? Immerse yourself in all the Wolfe’s Neck Center offers here: https://lnkd.in/gZt_GYQi

Our hearts are with all affected by the recent hurricane that severely impacted North Carolina, Tennessee, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and Virginia. Many of those impacted are farmers, who are facing devastating losses to crops, livestock, and equipment. If you are a farmer or rancher in the affected area, please see resources below: ·??????USDA Disaster Assistance Programs: https://lnkd.in/gnPcmXHk ·??????NC: Farmer Recovery Resources: https://lnkd.in/eWc5ugUP ·??????SC: Clemson University, SC Department of Agriculture and SC Department of Commerce Resources: https://lnkd.in/esjTJkmH ·??????TN: University of TN Extension Flood Recovery Efforts: https://lnkd.in/eaqFPDkd ·??????GA: GA Department of Agriculture Resources: https://lnkd.in/gciYPA_f ·??????VA: Virginia Department of Emergency Management Resources: https://lnkd.in/eiXEDJhV ·??????AL: Alabama Department of Agriculture Resources: https://lnkd.in/e4RTf7ii