New Michigan program helps farms continue by connecting buyers with sellers

Michigan has lost thousands of farms in recent years as farmers retire or sell their land
Fewer young people look to farming as a career
The new MiFarmLink program connects aspiring farmers with farmers looking to retire so those farms might continue

CEDAR — For the past three years, David Weeks has searched for a young farmer to take over his organic vegetable farm, La Casa Verde, in Cedar.

But, so far, he hasn’t found a buyer who intends to keep the property as a working farm.

“I strongly want to see this property remain in agriculture and remain a part of the resilient Michigan community and economy,” he said. “The last thing I want is for this property to get bought by some gazillionaire and they knock down the old buildings and build an estate house, and they’re there two weeks out of the year.”

In October, Weeks began advertising his farm on MIFarmLink, a new program that helps match aspiring farmers with those looking to retire and hand their operations over to the next generation. One goal of MIFarmLink is to ensure farmland remains farmland amid a push by big developers to convert rural properties to data centers, solar or wind farms, housing, and other projects.

The program launched as thousands of farms disappear across the US and Michigan as farmers retire and sell off their land and fewer young people get into the business. In addition, regulations, rising costs, lack of available labor and weather disasters have driven farmers out of the industry, Zippy Duvall, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, said in a 2024 post urging Congress to do more to protect the industry.

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“Family farms not only help drive the economy, they allow the rest of the nation the freedom to pursue their dreams without worrying about whether there will be enough food in their pantries,” Duvall said in the post.

In 2022, the US Department of Agriculture reported the average farmer was about 57 years old. The 2022 Census of Agriculture reported about 1.9 million farms in operation then –– the first time since the Civil War that fewer than 2 million farms were reported and a decline of about 7% since the 2017 census.

In Michigan, 44,000 farms were in operation in 2024, down from 47,200 in 2019, per USDA data. The amount of Michigan farmland shrank from 9.8 million acres in 2019 to 9.4 million acres in 2024.

The food and agriculture industry supports more than 800,000 jobs and generates nearly $126 billion in economic impact in Michigan, according to the state Department of Agriculture and Rural Development.

Weeks doesn’t want to see his farm as another declining statistic, but he said “it’s getting harder and harder for me to do the physical work,” and he guessed he’ll be able to continue farming for another five years at most.

While he’s yet to find a match, Weeks remains hopeful he’ll find someone to steward the farm for another generation.

‘Kind of like a dating profile’

The MIFarmLink program began in 2021, conceived in Ottawa County and spreading to Washtenaw County in 2023 before going statewide last fall.

In 2024, the program launched a farm-seeking function to help aspiring farmers connect with established farms.

“It’s kind of a dating profile for a farmer,” said Jill Dohner, the MIFarmLink program director.

Financial barriers persist for young people who want to start a farm.

An aerial view of a farm in winter — An aerial view of David Weeks’ farm, La Casa Verde. The farm includes 17 acres of tillable land. (Miles MacClure/For the Northern Michigan Journalism Collaborative)

“ The entry cost to get into farming is so high,” said Jamie Rahrig, director of Food and Farm Business Assistance at the Center for Regional Food Systems at Michigan State University.

To qualify for loans offered by the USDA and the Farm Service Agency, farmers must own the land they’re farming on, “so they have to have that first big barrier of being able to purchase land, and they can’t just be leasing the land,” Rahrig added.

Including MIFarmLink, 38 programs across the country connect beginning farmers with established farms.

MIFarmLink advertises itself as a mutually beneficial program for existing farms and aspiring farmers. For aging farmers, the opportunity to sell their farm will allow them to retire, while the younger generation can take over an operation that’s already up and running, oftentimes with farm equipment included in the deal.

‘They really want to find the right fit’

A diverse array of farms are posted on the MIFarmLink website, including small organic farms and larger corn and soybean operations. Currently, 60 farms looking for a successor have opened profiles on the website, while more than 600 individuals seeking a farm have signed up for the program, said Dohner, the MIFarmLink program director.

Dohner said farms that have made successful connections usually meet with three to four potential suitors before finding the right person to take over their farm.

“ It takes a lot of time to find the right fit, especially for the aging farmer who has been on the land for 40-, 50-plus years,” said Dohner. “And they really want to find the right fit. They want to find the right farmer who’s good for their operation and their farm.”

So far, the program has made 12 links throughout Michigan, but Dohner wouldn’t say how successful those links have been. She said the organization plans to track the success of the farm transitions over the next several years.

Aspiring farm owners who have signed up for MIFarmLink come from a diverse range of backgrounds, said Alexa Tedeschi, communications coordinator at MIFarmLink. The list spans recent college graduates with some agriculture experience to military veterans looking to make farming their career post-service.

“I think this platform has made a lot of people that haven’t done farming before and are interested and maybe have a dream,” she said.

“I do see the youthful energy of young farmers coming up, and that inspires me,” Dohner said.

‘That prime agricultural land’

Some farmers looking to retire have entertained offers for their land from real estate developers and data center developers. Data centers, which have drawn protests in many of the communities where they’ve been proposed, often offer large sums for farmland. In Michigan, the value of farm property is growing faster than farm values nationwide, thanks in part to purchases by commercial development groups.

“That, I think, is definitely something that is in conflict with wanting to try to save that prime agricultural land for farmers,” said Dohner.

“One of the issues is that developers can purchase the land for so much more money than what another farmer might be able to purchase that land for,” said Rahrig.

Weeks’ farm, La Casa Verde, is a small vegetable farm with 17 acres of tillable land.

A man opens a barn door — David Weeks opens the barn door on his farm, La Casa Verde, in Cedar. (Miles MacClure/For the Northern Michigan Journalism Collaborative)

At age 68, Weeks hopes to retire in the next few years, but he’s hoping to hold out for the right buyer.

Weeks said he’s had serious conversations with five prospective buyers for his farm in the past three years, but none were quite the right fit. Some were interested in flipping the property or subdividing the land for real estate developments, so he chose not to sell to them. He said only two prospective buyers intended to continue farming on the property, but talks fell apart for financial reasons.

“ People don’t see farming as a worthy career,” said Weeks.

Weeks has entertained the idea of training a farmer who doesn’t have any farming experience, with the idea that they’ll eventually purchase the farm or take over farm operations.

But, he said, it’s difficult to balance the current needs of the farm while simultaneously planning for the future.

“I can get four to eight times the productivity out of (a migrant) worker as I would out of one of these people who I have to train,” he said. “So, as a business person, one has to look at that productivity aspect of it. I can’t afford to be training someone on basic agronomy.”