As family farms decline, more Michigan farmers trying to preserve their land

The number of family-owned farms is on the decline in Michigan and across the US.
However, the share of farms in preservation programs is going up.
Farmers face pressure to exit the business because of high prices for their land, the effects of climate change, and a lack of younger farmers entering the business

John Boyer grew up on his family’s 131 acres of rolling fields of corn, oats and wheat in East Jordan.

The farm changed ownership outside the family several times over the decades before being rebought by Boyer, who said he felt an obligation to repurchase and farm the land so development wouldn’t encroach on the farming community.

“For any farmer, everything’s personal,” Boyer said. “Every piece of property, every stone you pick up, you spend countless hours out there.”

As millions of farmland acres around the country are expected to change hands in the next few decades, farmers face decisions about whether — and if so, how — to preserve farmland amid pressures from rising land values, a shifting climate and a younger generation who doesn’t want to farm.

The number of acres devoted to farming in Michigan has declined in recent decades, and ownership of that land is changing.

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In 2022, about 9.5 million acres, or about a quarter of the state, were devoted to farming, down from about 9.8 million acres in 2017, a roughly 3% dip, according to the most recent federal farm census. Farmland owned by farmers fell about 208,000 acres, or 3.6%, between 2017 and 2022, according to data from the US Department of Agriculture. Leased or rented farmland dipped similarly.

Meanwhile, the number of farmland acres in Michigan protected by conservation programs has increased in recent years, reflecting a national trend.

“It’s a matter of trying to figure out what exactly is going to be the best fit for everybody’s situation. And there’s a lot of pressure. There’s a lot of money,” said Jon LaPorte, a farm business management educator for Michigan State University Extension.

According to the USDA, Michigan farmland was valued at about $6,800 per acre last year, up 7.8% from 2024 and outpacing the national average of 4.3%.

The pressure to preserve could be especially strong in northern Michigan, where farmers already face some of the effects of climate change — more extreme precipitation, crop disease and temperature swings — but some say those impacts are relatively less severe than elsewhere.

“As the world climate changes, this area could become more and more important,” said Dave Skornia, a farmer in Boyne City. “So, you got to have land.”

A tool for preservation

For Boyer, the best way to protect his farmland was to restrict future development on his property by entering what’s called a conservation easement.

He still owns the property, but he sold the future development rights of this 131 acres to the Little Traverse Conservancy, which holds those rights even if Boyer transfers land to his kids or decides to sell to another owner down the line.

An easement can be a hard decision for farmers to make because land is typically their greatest asset, something that can pay for retirement or a college fund, said Joe Graham, chief financial and operating officer for the Little Traverse Conservancy.

“We’re offering them another alternative,” Graham said. “We’re offering a way to capture some of the equity and the value they have in that land without having to sell it and see it leave their ownership.”

Of the conservancy’s 30,000 acres protected in easements across five counties in northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula, about 6,000 acres are in farmland. Graham sees interest among small farming communities growing.

But easements still have their challenges, Graham said. Conservancies typically pay landowners less than what the land is valued at because development is restricted. As land values rise in rural northern Michigan, the conservancy doesn’t see many farmers purely motivated by financial return entering into suchagreements.

“There can be a question of timing. ‘Is this the right thing to do? What might we be foregoing later?’” Graham said.

Boyer wants to prevent his land from being divided up down the line and sold in smaller parcels “to make a quick buck.” Once acres are converted for built development like houses or commercial use, it typically doesn’t return to farmland.

“Then suddenly a productive farm field or ground is gone, and it’s gone for generations,” Boyer said. “It’s gone forever.”

‘They don’t make land anymore’

Rebecca Carlson, a cherry and apple grower who runs Overlook Orchards in Northport, also sees land division as a future threat to the farmland in Leelanau County.

Aging farmers might split up land among multiple kids, leaving a patchwork of ownership that “breaks up multi-generational farms,” Carlson said.

She’s a fourth-generation farmer who married into another multi-generational farm family, growing the original farm from about 200 acres to 1,300 acres over eightyears.

“In order to be successful in farming, in some cases, it’s one of those, ‘Go big or go home,’ with the climate of farming today,” Carlson said.

Larger acreage can spread out the increasingly high costs to run a farm, including everything from fertilizer to equipment to labor.

To expand, Carlson and her husband bought land but also lease some parcels, mostly from multi-generational farmers who don’t have a younger generation to take over the business.

Leases keep farmland in production for the duration of the contract — Carlson’s leases are mostly for 30 years. She pays annual fees that vary based on factors like location or crop productivity. Those fees can be significantly cheaper than owning farmland because Carlson isn’t responsible for property taxes or other costs like insurance for infrastructure.

“It’s a great way to maintain your farming, your farm and grow your farm,” she said. “They don’t make land anymore.”

In Michigan, about 39% of agricultural land is leased, according to the 2022 USDA census. That percentage was the same from the previous census in 2017.

Leasing does have some limitations. A 2026 MSU survey of Michigan farmers found that the top concerns for people looking to lease land were high rates and finding land that matches their needs.

Farmers either have a “crop in mind but no ground, or they had the ground but in some cases they weren’t sure what they could raise on it,” LaPorte with MSUExtension said.

It’s not just about land, either. LaPorte said the relationship between landowner and farmer is just as important.

“You might have a great relationship where you never worry a single day about whether or not you’re going to have the property a year from now,” LaPorte said. “Other cases, there’s some differences in terms of what each party’s goals are that kind of create that sense of of anxiety about, ‘Is this going to last long-term?’”

Rising land values and development

Farmland values are steady or increasing in the Midwest even as farm incomes are down nationally because demand from industrial and residential development is high, said Harold Halderman, president and CEO of Halderman Companies, a farm real estate and management agency working primarily in Indiana, Michigan and Ohio.

Halderman said high farmland values come from tax-deferred exchanges, which allow landowners to defer capital gains taxes when they sell highly appreciated land and use those proceeds to buy other property.

“That’s where a lot of your farmland value gets support. Are there other buyers out there that keep a floor under it?” he said. “If you’re looking to buy farmland that might be frustrating. However, if you’re a farmer that owns a lot of farmland and you like to keep your asset values on your balance sheet higher, it’s a good thing.”

Farmers aren’t the only ones interested in long-term land leases.

A man looks out a window at farmland — Wexford Township resident Jake Kerby looks out at farmland where early plans from a renewable energy developer would have lined the field with solar arrays. (Vivian La/IPR News)

As the state pushes for a cleaner grid to combat the effects of climate change, policies to attract renewable energy developers make farmland desirable for wind turbines, battery storage facilities or solar panels.

“From a landowner’s perspective, they’ve got bills to pay the same as a farmer, and they’re looking at situations of, ‘Where can I get the most value?’” LaPorte said. “And if they struggle to find an interested farm, they might be willing to go into some of these long-term agreements that you see into wind turbines, solar.”

In Michigan, solar takes up a small share — 0.09% — of USDA prime farmland. It’s less than the acreage converted to suburban development or recreational uses like golf courses, according to the trade group Solar Energy Industries Association.

Still, local opposition remains fierce. In Wexford County this year, early plans from a renewable energy developer to build solar panels on nearly 1,500 acres of farmland sparked concerns about encroaching development on productive fields and the long-term impact on the ground.

Carlson in Northport sees solar as another looming threat to farmland in Leelanau County. She’d rather see panels go over parking structures, highway medians or on high rises.

“Put them in places that make sense,” she said. “Don’t take away our resources to grow our own food.”

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