November 21st, 2019
By Erica Goodman
American Farmland Trust and the Hudson Valley Farmlink Network Celebrate Fifth Anniversary, 175 Farmer Matches
Today, American Farmland Trust, the organization behind the national movement No Farms No Food®, recognizes the five-year anniversary of the Hudson Valley Farmlink Network, a partnership of 17 organizations working to ensure the availability of farmland for farmers in New York’s Hudson Valley.
As a third of New York’s farmers reach age 65 and older, owning nearly 2 million acres of farmland, the Hudson Valley Farmlink Network fills an important role assisting farmers in transferring their farms to a new generation.
Since 2014, the Network and its partners have helped more than 175 farmers find and secure farmland in the Hudson Valley and trained nearly 10,000 farmers and farmland owners through events and personalized assistance. Coordinated by AFT with primary support from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Hudson Valley Farmlink Network offers a website to connect farmers and landowners, access events, and assist farmers seeking to find or transfer farmland, as well as farmland owners who want to keep their land in farming.
“The Hudson Valley Farmlink Network emerged out of a need to address the tremendous shift in agriculture, where generational changes in ownership make farmland vulnerable to moving out of farming. To see 175 farmers find land in the Hudson Valley, thanks to the incredible efforts of Network partners, demonstrates the impact of a comprehensive program to help farmers searching for land and farmland owners who want to see their land stay in agriculture.”
“Ensuring new generations of farmers have an opportunity to find a place on the land is critical to the future of farming and land conservation in the Hudson Valley. Congratulations to American Farmland Trust and the Hudson Valley Farmlink Network partners for this important milestone.”
The Hudson Valley Farmlink Network has been supported since its inception by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, with additional support provided by the New York State Conservation Partnership Program and the members of American Farmland Trust.
Inspired by the success in the Hudson Valley, AFT and the Alliance for New York’s Farmland advocated for a statewide program, Farmland for a New Generation New York, that launched in 2018 in partnership with the state of New York, agricultural organizations, land trusts and others. The statewide program offers a website, events and assistance through AFT and a network of 20 Regional Navigator organizations, to support farmers and farmland owners across New York.
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American Farmland Trust is the only national organization that takes a holistic approach to agriculture, focusing on the land itself, the agricultural practices used on that land, and the farmers and ranchers who do the work. AFT launched the conservation agriculture movement and continues to raise public awareness through our No Farms, No Food message. Since our founding in 1980, AFT has helped permanently protect over 6.5 million acres of agricultural lands, advanced environmentally-sound farming practices on a half million additional acres and supported thousands of farm families.