WASHINGTON, D.C. – Roughly 40 percent of farmland in the United States is rented and nearly one-third of that land is owned by women. To this day, no one has a handle on how much of these rented lands are integrated into farmer conservation practices and that has those at the American Farmland Trust (AFT) highly concerned.

AFT, the organization behind the national movements “No Farms No Food” and the “Women for the Land Initiative,” recently released a report on non-operator landowners to clear up misconceptions and identify opportunities to advance conservation on agricultural lands owned by those who do not farm it.

Spearheading this effort was Dr. Gabrielle Roesch-McNally, AFT Women for the Land director. “In our report we focused on individually or partnership owned lands, not institutions or trusts,” she said. “The emphasis we heard from renters is what drove this effort, and many of them told us that the landowners only care about the bottom line and they really don’t care about the land, just the income they get from renting it.”

The report comes after fact sheets were released late last year providing state-specific outcomes and strategies for 11 states surveyed. “Our study challenged the idea that they only care about the bottom line and our study simply doesn’t find this to be true,” McNally said. “They do care about conservation. They do deeply care about stewarding the land for future generations and are thinking about farmland preservation.”

According to McNally, there is a gap in communication between the renter and the landowner. Farmers have been reluctant or had difficulty communicating with landowners either because of distance or because they are held back by their perception that landowners only care about rental payments, not long-term stewardship of the land. What’s more, she said, farm leases are typically verbal and only run for one year, making certain kinds of conservation investments risky.

McNally wants to provide pathways to engage landowners to rent their land and to scale up regenerative practices for improved conservation and farm productivity outcomes. “AFT’s survey found that landowners with a farming background have more of a connection to the land that is being farmed,” she said. “Some landowners are often not aware of available conservation programs and are unsure about broaching the topic with their farmers, particularly if they lack farm knowledge and experience, which we found is more common when the landowner is a woman.”

The communications gap is more about misconception and lack of knowledge than reluctance to implement conservation, McNally noted. “We learned that we have an opportunity to better communicate with landowners and farmers via separate programming as well as by bringing them together to achieve mutually agreed upon conservation goals for the land, which can be facilitated by written leases that have longer terms and are supported by available government funds and collaborative investment for the long-term good of the land.”

Three surprising things were learned from this work, she said.

First, the gender of the non-operating landowner makes little difference. As many men as women indicated a strong desire to steward and protect the land. Second, many respondents do not have a succession plan for the land, leaving uncertainty about what will happen to the land in the future. Third, non-operating landowners are supportive of their renters taking conservation-oriented action on the land and are willing to support them in various ways.

AFT is headquartered in Washington D.C. It was founded in 1980 to save America’s farms and ranches by creating a conservation agriculture movement. The organization’s primary goals are to protect agricultural land, promote environmentally sound farming practices and keep farmers on the land. Contact AFT at info@farmland.org or call 202-331-7300.