Off-farm landowners share their families' stories of transition
Think about this for a moment: Approximately half of Minnesota’s land area is used for agriculture.
A large chunk of the state’s farmland — about 35 percent — is rented from owners who do not farm. Within this statistic is a familiar story: An older generation of farmers retires without heirs who want to take over.
Instead, their children or grandchildren scatter toward other careers or opportunities and eventually, they inherit the farmland. This presents a series of difficult choices. Decisions over who controls land and how it’s used are about much more than money or paperwork. They also touch on family, legacy and the ways people relate to the environment.
Carol Bouska lives in Minneapolis and owns farmland in northeastern Iowa with her three sisters. Meg Nielsen has farmland in southern Minnesota and lives in Wisconsin.
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Both are members of a landowner group called Climate Land Leaders that works to store carbon and reduce emissions. MPR News Host Cathy Wurzer talked with them and William Lazarus, an extension economist and professor at the University of Minnesota, about farmland transitions and the roles of heirs and renters in Minnesota farm country.
‘Deep roots’
Bouska’s family has deep farm roots. Her dad was born on the family farm and lived there his whole life. When her parents died, she and her siblings had to act fast to decide what to do.
Climate change is important to Bouska and her family and has guided their decisions. They planted 4,500 trees and shrubs, put in prairie strips around the perimeter of the land, planted three pollinator fields and restored a wetland area. These changes brought back five different species of waterfowl.
Putting the land first
Nielsen grew up on a farm. When her parents died, she and her sister weren’t sure what to do. They split the land and Nielsen and her husbanded dedicated half their section to corn and soybeans, half grazing for animals. They hope to plant trees around 50 acres of their land.
Farmland transitions
Landlords vary in terms of how much they care about the land, said Lazarus. A survey by the USDA Economic Research Service recently looked at various issues related to absent landlords. It found that rented land is less likely to utilize cover cropping, which aids in conservation efforts.
Lazarus says renters vary, too, between beginning farmers and more established farmers who are looking for more land. There is a lot of pressure from the economy to farm more acres, he said, but land has gone up in price and is too expensive for many to buy.
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Audio transcript
You might be familiar with this story. An older generation of farmers retires without heirs who want to take over. Their kids or grandchildren have moved away to follow other careers, build lives. And, eventually, they inherent the farmland.
Now this presents a series of difficult choices. And the fact is decisions over who controls the land and how it's used about much more than money or paperwork. They're also often about family and legacy and the way people relate to the environment.
Our next two guests know this well. Carol Bouska lives in Minneapolis and owns farmland in northeastern Iowa with her three sisters. Meg Nielsen lives in Wisconsin, has farmland in southern Minnesota. Both are members of a landowner group called Climate Land-- can't even talk here-- Climate Land Leaders that's implementing conservation projects on their farmland. Carol and Meg, welcome.
CAROL BOUSKA: Hi.
MEG NIELSEN: Thank you for having us on today.
CATHY WURZER: Absolutely. Thanks for being here. So, Meg, let's begin with you. I believe I understand that you grew up on your parents' farm, right? I'm betting it changed throughout your lifetime.
MEG NIELSEN: Yes, that's correct. I did grow up on the farm in southern Minnesota and always have had a strong connection to that place.
CATHY WURZER: And your parents died in 2012?
MEG NIELSEN: Correct. That's right. And my sister and I inherited the land together, split the tillable acres, and then kept the homestead part together.
CATHY WURZER: Gosh, what were the first steps that you had to take with your sister to figure out what the heck to do? Or did your dad say what he wanted to have done?
MEG NIELSEN: He didn't really say what he wanted to have done. He left a farmer in charge who was renting the land from us. And that farmer remained doing corn and soybeans on our land.
And so my sister actually wasn't interested in doing some of the land changes that I wanted to do. So that's why we split the land. And we are working on our own, my husband and I, to make some changes.
CATHY WURZER: I want to talk to you about that in a few minutes. I want to bring Carol into the conversation. So, Carol, I understand your dad was born on your family farm, lived there his whole life, which is those are deep, deep roots, Carol. How did that work?
CAROL BOUSKA: Well, you mean after he died, or--
CATHY WURZER: I bet it was emotional to talk about what would happen after he and your mom died.
CAROL BOUSKA: Yeah, well, my parents were really good planners. And they prepared us for that. And when they were in their end years, they were very concerned about what would happen after they passed. And they wanted us to maintain family harmony. And we're a very close family. So that was where we started.
And we all grew up there, but we all left and had other careers. So when they died, none of us were living there or were farmers. So that was where we started with our own succession planning.
CATHY WURZER: Who took over the farm then after your parents died? Who was running it? Was it you or another sibling?
CAROL BOUSKA: So there were five of us living at the time. And we had a renter who had been renting the farm for almost 30 years at the time. So he continued to do the farming, and we became the owners of the land.
And we were really concerned about what would happen to the land when we died. So we wanted to make sure that the farm stayed as one farm and stayed intact. And then we met with a lawyer. And we created a legal partnership to lay out a plan for succession.
And we were actually really glad that we did that because our brother died unexpectedly the year after we completed that. And we were so happy that we had talked through that plan in detail and had a plan in place. And then we sisters really felt the urgency to move forward from there, and it took off.
CATHY WURZER: So, Meg, I want to come back to you about what to do-- so you're doing something a little different with your parcel of land versus your sister, right? What are you doing? And why is that important to you?
MEG NIELSEN: Well, it's important to us because we've always been concerned about climate change and the negative effects that mankind is having on the rest of the Earth and creation. And I've always also been really interested in food. And I've been involved in serving some public meals over the course of my careers.
And so these two things merged together. And we decided we had land. And we could use that land, that precious resource to improve the climate and to provide better and healthier food for people. So we decided that we wanted to change the land over from corn and soybeans to something else, some more diversified crops.
So the first thing we had to do, of course, was to put that land into grazing because you can't just switch. It's impossible. So we found a grazier locally that was willing to do that. And it was a lot less for him to rent the land from us than it was for a corn and soybeans renter. So there was an inequity there.
But we just wanted to have enough to pay the taxes in our long-term care insurance so that we could change this land over. And the first step was to putting some animals on the land, to getting roots back in the ground, to planting trees around these 50 acres. So it's not even quite half of our land that we're working with the grazer right now. The other half, we had to keep in corn and soybeans for economic purposes.
CATHY WURZER: Carol, what are you doing with your land? Are you following similar practices?
CAROL BOUSKA: Yeah, I think we started putting land in conservation practices. So we planted 4,500 trees and shrubs and put in prairie strips around the perimeter of our entire farm and have put in three pollinator fields with forbs and grasses. And we also restored a wetland area, creating a pond.
And it's exciting. We were just there recently. And we saw five different species of waterfowl who were migrating through. And so that was exciting.
CATHY WURZER: Wow, there's a lot to talk with you both on this account because you're doing so much work. I have to go to my next guest here. But I appreciate your time here today. Meg Nielsen and Carol Bouska, thank you so much.
MEG NIELSEN: Thank you.
CAROL BOUSKA: Thanks for having us.
CATHY WURZER: As a matter of fact, both will join us tomorrow to talk more about how they're trying to address climate change through their farmland. Well, right now, we're going to turn to an economist to hear more about the role that heirs and renters play in Minnesota farm country. William Lazarus is on the line right now. He's a professor at the University of Minnesota. And he's taking time out to talk with us today. Professor, welcome.
WILLIAM LAZARUS: Hi, Cathy. Thank you for having me.
CATHY WURZER: So I understand that you also have some family farmland that you rent out in Pennsylvania. Is that right?
WILLIAM LAZARUS: Yes, I do. Actually, 80 acres that was owned by my wife's father. And he passed away, and we inherited it in 2015.
CATHY WURZER: So what you heard from Meg and Carol, does it ring true to you in terms of the decision-making process and what to do?
WILLIAM LAZARUS: Oh, yes. And we're very interested in preserving it and maintaining land quality and that sort of thing. We don't have anything formal going on the climate program that they mentioned. And I'd say that landlords vary in terms of how much they care about that or how knowledgeable they are about that.
But I'm working for our management and a lot on water quality and conservation kinds of issues at the University of Minnesota. So I try to put some of those things in the practice on our own land that we switched from one tenant to another because the new tenant sells hay. And so he agreed to put about 30% of the land in hay as opposed to corn and soybeans, which is what it was being used for before, and we like that.
CATHY WURZER: Do you have a sense, Professor, of how off-farm absentee landlords in general are affecting Eggland around the country?
WILLIAM LAZARUS: There was a survey done by the USDA Economic Research Service recently. And they looked at a number of issues related to absentee landlords. And, interestingly, they found that rented land tended to be more likely to use conservation tillage, which is interesting than owner-operated land, but a little less likely to put cover crops on, the two practices that are one of the easiest to measure and identify with conservation.
CATHY WURZER: I'm also curious here. Who's typically renting farmland? Is it a young farmer trying to get a toehold in the field literally, or somebody else?
WILLIAM LAZARUS: Yes, often, beginning farmers but also established farmers that are trying to expand, especially true in crop farms. Equipments got a lot bigger in recent years. And it's more efficient if you can cover enough acres with it. And so there's a lot of pressure from economies of size standpoint to get more acres.
And with labor efficiency, that sort of thing, it's fairly easy to farm a lot of acres. But land is expensive. It's gone up a lot in the last few years, especially. So it's difficult to come up with a capital to buy as much as you need.
CATHY WURZER: So as we talk about the health of the land, of course, we were talking about cover crops and that kind of thing. How do conservation practices affect the value of the land, if at all?
WILLIAM LAZARUS: Yeah, that's a hard question. I think it does affect it but probably indirectly to a large extent in terms of maintaining the organic matter and that sort of thing. When a buyer looks at a farm, I think they tend to focus on observable things, measurable things, like organic matter or visible gullies, so that sort of thing.
And, obviously, the way it was farmed before that affects those sorts of things. But I imagine they focus more on those kinds of measurable impacts rather than so much on the history of it, although it's probably both important.
CATHY WURZER: I wish I had more time with you. Thank you so much. It was a pleasure talking to you.
WILLIAM LAZARUS: Thank you. Good to be here.
CATHY WURZER: William Lazarus is an extension economist and a professor at the University of Minnesota. Tomorrow, by the way, we'll talk more about how farmers and landlords are trying to store carbon and reduce emissions and what resources may help. As the week goes on, we'll hear about other ways that folks are using farmland to take action on climate, including an Ojibwe farmer who's reintroducing bison on his land.
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