This Land Ain't My Land

Tenant farming is on the rise as the value of U.S. cropland soars.

- Karen Angel

Helena and Matthew Sylvester would love to plant fruit trees and blackberries on their Bay Area organic farm, but they’re holding off because they don’t own the land. Like a growing number of young farmers across the country, they lease it year-to-year. That means the Sylvesters must weigh every improvement carefully. “Last year, a week before my husband and I were going to get married, our landlord told us they were going to pave over 2 acres of our farm,” says Helena, 29. Although she and her husband were able to block those plans, the experience “makes me hesitant to think we could financially invest, because that could happen again,” she says.

The overall number of farmers in the U.S. has been shrinking steadily, but the number of tenant farmers age 25 to 44 climbed almost 9 percent from 2007 to 2012, according to the latest U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) census. In California, the country’s leading agricultural producer, it rose 22 percent; in Washington and Oregon, it was up 9 percent and 11 percent, respectively.

Many of the new tenant farmers identify with the locally grown food movement and are cultivating high-value organic produce. U.S. sales of organic food climbed to a record $43.3 billion in 2015, and there’s still plenty of room to grow: The category accounts for only about 5 percent of all food sales, according to the Organic Trade Association. “I had a general feeling of distrust in the industrial food system, and I wanted to be able to provide good-quality food to my community, especially to our families and friends,” says Helena.