Our Land Access Story
with additional commentary on the topic….
Where it all began….
While Emilia and Madeline were dreaming and visiting goat farms on spring break in their late teens…. the start to our farming journey was in the works. Neither Madeline, Elliott nor Emilia come from farming families. We are all one or two generations removed from agriculture and land stewardship. We understand how common this is today- often having family members who once farmed but had to sell their land or leave farms for better opportunities, safety and more stable income.
While Emilia lived in Flagstaff, AZ during her 20’s she pursued an educational program in dry land, high-desert farming. Madeline and Elliott, separately, were pursuing whatever access to farming could look like in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Colorado. After Madeline and Elliott met while teaching a sustainable agriculture program at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, they decided to join forces with their friend Max to build a specialty pepper business on various parcels of rented land throughout Minneapolis and the west metro. They expanded these operations over the years to also grow melons and squash for a local food access program and grew diversified vegetables for a small CSA they ran.
Emilia then had the chance to move back to the Midwest and she was able to join in on the fun! Starting a new business with Madeline, Earth Hands Organics.
As we continue our beginning farmer journey, we know it is important to recognize the winding, often difficult path to making farming for a livelihood a reality. Below is our land access story, mixed with the actual struggles of accessing farming opportunities experienced by us and the greater emerging farmer community.
The Journey continues and we see you fellow emerging farmers!
Land access for emerging farmers is complex and layered. You may or may not have access depending on your identity, family relations or privileges. Many aspiring farmers and growers lack access to either land, water, transportation to land or a combination of those three (potentially plus others!).
It would be lovely if we had land allocated for farming in more urban or suburban areas…residentially-zoned land prices are too high for them to make sense on a farmer’s budget. And the same thing is happening in rural spaces. Development, land ownership consolidation and large corporations that may use/exploit large quantities of land are what the farmer is up against in the market. It is also difficult to find land that is not affected by the drift of whatever the neighbors are applying to their fields. I could go on, because as I mentioned above it is all layered with additional, various factors making it more or less difficult for aspiring farmers to access the land they seek to farm.
Our farm journey has been impacted by some of the difficulties mentioned above. Yet, we have remained stubborn in navigating this journey, all while being supported by our loved ones. Community has always been the blessing.
We started off urban farming, learning the star-worthy resilience of city farmers. We incubated at a collective urban farm project in Northeast Minneapolis while managing fields of larger crops outside of the city. The long commutes and tiring hours worked outside of full-time jobs is actually quite common in the beginning/emerging farmer community. It takes determined folks!
During our two years farming in the city, we built relationships with others seeking and offering land opportunities. We kept our eyes and ears open for access. One opportunity came about that was advertised on a public listserv. We were stoked! There was the option to rent a walk-in cooler, tillage services in the spring, and a spacious processing room. Great opportunity….on paper. We struggled renting from this landlord for two years. At first we dismissed the accusations and off-putting communications because… maybe we misunderstood? We could do better, we could fix this! But it ended worse than we thought it could and were emotionally traumatized by the end.
Now into late 2025 and 2026….through word of mouth and a very kind colleague, we found our current landlord. We are working with him to establish a relationship and build a land rental contract that fills both our needs while facilitating understanding from each party. We are feeling blessed to have our current operation supported by this new landlord.
We ultimately would like to farm a piece of land that we can invest our time and resources into for the long-term. We try this with each place we lease, but it is always hard not knowing how long you can be there. We will continue to plant pollinators and encourage biodiversity on the land we steward, wherever that is. We hope to begin the search for land we can perennially call home in the fall of 2026.
