Nurturing Healthy Relationships Around Land
July 12th, 2023
[Read time: 7 minutes]
The Role of Relationships in Land Access
TLDR: Paige Phinney, KTA’s North Bay Director, and Caymin Ackerman, owner of Big Mesa Farm, have co-created a guide to support landholders and farmers and ranchers in developing and maintaining healthy relationships around land stewardship. The full guide is available below alongside two client stories that portray some of the unique experiences and barriers small-scale producers face in their journeys toward land stability.
Stable land access is central to the success of any farm business. For farmers and ranchers, land is not just a place for storage and equipment – it is a fundamental resource that provides the soil upon which they produce abundant, nutrient-dense food in addition to flowers, medicine, and other products. Land can also signify something deeper and fundamental to both their personal identities and business, acting as a home for producers, their families and businesses, and encompassing their dreams and visions of a future food system. In this way, land forms the basis for the deeply connective and fruitful relationship between the steward, their community, and the natural world around them.
However, access to farmland across California is extremely limited for those who do not have the ability to purchase land outright at the market rate, owing to factors such as scarcity, price, water availability, discrimination, and soil quality. Many farmers and ranchers that KTA supports name access to land as a key barrier limiting the establishment and growth of their businesses, and limited resources are available to help them address these hurdles. For those who do manage to gain access to land, leasing from landholders can be a complex and delicate process with high stakes and unseen power dynamics.
Paige Phinney, KTA North Bay Director
North Bay Director Paige Phinney and KTA client Caymin Ackerman of Big Mesa Farm in Mendocino County have both witnessed land access issues firsthand; Paige as a farm business advisor and member of the farming community, and Caymin in her journey and search for farmland as a farm business owner. From these experiences, Paige and Caymin were motivated to leverage their own learnings and insights to support land access for other farmers and ranchers.
Caymin Ackerman, Owner of Big Mesa Farm
Thus, they developed a shared vision for a guide that would support healthy, generative relationships between producers and landholders. Their focus is the human relationships necessary for successful land partnerships, offering considerations from the standpoint of both landholder and farmer and rancher as well as highlighting the often unseen dynamics present between these individuals.
The full guide, Agriculturalist & Landholder Relationship Guide, is available to read below.* Alongside this resource are two unique stories from KTA clients – one from Caymin, documenting her journey from land lessee to landholder, and the other from Jenny and Vince Trotter of Kibo Farm, who work alongside their landholder to create a mutual vision for the land. In sharing these stories, we hope to portray some of the barriers to land access that farmers and ranchers experience, demonstrate the importance of strong relationships between farmers and ranchers and landholders, and lay out a vision for symbiotic land stewardship.
*Note: We recognize that not every farmer's journey around land access is reflected in or resonant with the guide or the stories shared here. Even within KTA's client community, we know that land access opportunities and barriers vary significantly based on individuals' identities, financial resources, location of their farm, and more. This guide lands along the path towards helping shift the paradigm towards Land Justice and remains within existing mindsets, paradigms, and economic models. We are clear that there is more work ahead to ensure all small-scale sustainable farmers and ranchers, particularly those who continue to endure oppression and harm, have secure homes for their farming operations.
Jenny and Vince Trotter, Kibo Farm
Jenny and Vince Trotter have run their small, family farm, Kibo Farm, in Santa Rosa since 2015. Both had worked in agriculture before, tending to land and growing produce across Northern California. Kibo Farm arose from both of their visions for a farm business that would nourish both the community around them and the soil beneath them – the name “Kibo” itself means “wish” in Japanese, the embodiment of their hopes for a changed food system.
In 2010, when they were pursuing the idea of a farm of their own, Jenny and Vince started meeting with different landholders to explore possibilities. Through a mutual friend, Jenny and Vince met Nate Belden, the owner of Belden Barns, a 55-acre vineyard in Sonoma County. Nate, a farmer himself, was interested in both diversifying the agricultural production on his property and providing an opportunity for someone else to access the land needed to create their own operation. With three acres of flat ground not planted in grapes, Nate envisioned an operation that could share some of the assets in place for the vineyard – such as water, fencing, equipment, and existing structures – and complement the nascent wine brand that he was building with his wife, Lauren. The Beldens' hope was that the presence of a small, sustainably-managed vegetable operation would distinguish the property from those of other wine labels and help visitors understand the breadth and potential of Sonoma County agriculture.
As Jenny and Vince continued unearthing land opportunities in the region, their relationship with Nate slowly developed over the next five years. They learned more about each other, discussed their mutual vision for the land and community, and connected not just as farmers, but as people. Their shared excitement and sense of purpose propelled everyone forward so that eventually Vince, Jenny, and Nate started discussing a lease arrangement. Unfortunately, after a few months of conversations, they reached an impasse – the Beldens were having some complications with permitting, and Vince and Jenny felt their own inexperience as business owners limited their ability to draft a lease that truly addressed their needs. Jenny and Vince spent the next three years continuing to search for land ranging from San Mateo County to Mendocino, and even up to Washington state. Eventually, though, their journey led them back to Nate. They started slow this time, agreeing that Jenny and Vince would try out a season at Belden Barns to see how things panned out. As their relationship progressed, Vince and Jenny started taking on more and more land, and collaborated alongside Nate to intertwine their businesses through shared products – their cider – and shared sales. As of 2023, Vince and Jenny are fully settled on Belden Barns’ property, farming 3.5 acres and maintaining a fruit tree orchard.
While the slow progression of their relationship over five years wasn’t intentional, it allowed Jenny, Vince, and Nate the space to not rush into an agreement too quickly, helping them avoid potential pitfalls that could arise. This time was vital to them developing a sense of trust with one another, a key factor that assured Vince, Jenny, and Nate when beginning to lease the land. They were not only able to connect over a shared vision — growing food to feed their local community and cultivate resilient ecosystems on the land – but also personally, with Vince and Jenny raising a family on the same property as Nate and Lauren.
Over the years, the land and relationship have proved fruitful for Jenny and Vince, supporting them in gradually scaling up their business and expanding their reach within their regional foodshed. More recently, the Trotter family was able to move on the farm. Recognizing the housing shortage in Sonoma County, the Beldens built an additional house on the property and set an affordable rent that created the opportunity for Vince and Jenny to be truly rooted in their farm.
When problems inevitably arise, as is true in any relationship, the communication that Vince, Jenny, and Nate have fostered over the years helps them navigate the relationship. They all meet for monthly check-ins to assess how things are progressing and identify any needs that have surfaced over the past month. Jenny, Vince, and Nate commit to an approach of interest-based decision-making, exploring one another’s respective needs and aligning on what matters before making decisions. There are times when communication isn’t perfect and signals get crossed, but by viewing one another as people first, Jenny, Vince, and Nate are able to rely on their trusted relationship to shape a mutually beneficial path forward.
Jenny and Vince hope that these more collaborative relationships can become increasingly common between landowners and farmers. Nate, too, hopes that this model of co-cultivation of the land is one that can be modeled by other Sonoma County landowners whose properties are zoned for agriculture. Due to the nature of doing business, there will always be an aspect of mutual sacrifice and risk that everyone assumes. But, by having a shared vision for the land, open communication, and a personal connection to their landholder, Kibo Farm has nurtured stability and growth for their business.
Read more about how to cultivate mutually supportive relationships around land in the Agriculturalist & Landholder Relationship Guide.
Caymin Ackerman, Big Mesa Farm
Before owning Big Mesa Farm, Caymin Ackerman worked for another farm operation in the North Bay. As she considered starting her business and finding land, she received a valuable piece of advice: don’t choose land just because it checks certain boxes. Instead, choose a place that speaks to you – land where you would genuinely cherish living and working.
When Caymin initiated her search for land to lease in Marin County, she began reaching out to her community through flyers, paper ads, and even by knocking on folks’ doors. Eventually, she heard of an opportunity through a farmer friend of hers for a parcel in Bolinas. The landholders had been interested in supporting local agriculture and were willing to lease land to Caymin to start Big Mesa. Together, they drew up a short lease agreement, and Caymin moved into housing on the property to start farming.
Caymin and her landholders were generally aligned on their vision for the farm – they both wanted to nurture the soil, grow nutritious produce, and connect the community to local agriculture. As Caymin grew her farm business, expanding from just growing cilantro to cultivating all types of vegetables, the landholders supported by helping build crucial farming infrastructure for the property. But there were also differing expectations and underlying power dynamics at play. Caymin was not only navigating starting a business, a challenge in and of itself, but also attempting to align expectations of what the operation would entail. Caymin did her best to navigate establishing her farm as an independent project separate from the landholder enterprises adjacent to the farm, a dynamic she had not anticipated. When complex situations inevitably arose, Caymin found herself feeling isolated and generally unequipped to represent her needs fully. This was a problem she witnessed across her peers as well, as they too attempted to navigate the complexities of leasing farmland from landholders. Over her seven years in Bolinas, Caymin relied on her wisdom, communication skills, and community support to assist her in working with her landholders – but she knew that many other farmers in her position did not have her same skillset or resources.
In looking for a permanent home for her farm business, Caymin again turned to her community for support. Guided by the notion to love where she worked, she finally found a place through word-of-mouth in Comptche and, with support from her family, she was able to partially buy the land. Purchasing the property and moving her farm business was a leap of faith; leaving Bolinas meant that Caymin had to find new sales outlets, establish a new community, and invest in this new farm property so that it could support her operation. Caymin found herself traversing through a new realm of property taxes, homeowners insurance, and maintenance – things she didn’t have to worry about when leasing. But she had also secured greater land stability, and was free to steward the land and grow her business according to her own vision. After years of growing in Comptche, Caymin has deepened her agricultural journey, forming resilient and meaningful connections with the land and communities in which she’s immersed.
In Caymin’s view, land stewardship is a continual give and take, both as a land lessee and a landholder. Thus, she envisions the guide as a supportive resource to help everyone navigate the often delicate and complex relationship of collectively stewarding land. Despite how these relationships often play out, Caymin’s reminder is that both the farmer and landholder are on the same team – the relationship should not be exploitative, but one of mutual respect and contribution. In developing the guide, Caymin hopes her experience may support other farmers in their own journeys towards land stability.
Hear more of Caymin’s wisdom and insight about relationships between farmers and landholders in the Agriculturalist & Landholder Relationship Guide.
Agriculturalist & Landholder Relationship Guide
The following resource aims to offer wisdom and guidance in service of fostering healthy landholder and farmer and rancher relationships. Informed by on-the-ground farmer experiences within the small-scale, sustainable agriculture community in Northern California, the guide is intended to contribute to a visionary path forward wherein producers and landholders can thrive together.
PC: Kelsey Joy Photography, Caymin Ackerman