ANN ARBOR, Mich. – When MIFarmLink was created four years ago, it was the first program of its kind in Michigan exclusively dedicated to connecting farmland owners – who may have no one to pass on their farms to when they retire – with beginning and aspiring farmers looking to buy, lease, or manage land.

Established as a pilot program in 2021 by Ottawa County with USDA grant funding, MIFarmLink is still a relatively new program, but it’s already shown real promise, according to Jill Dohner, MIFarmLink director.

“We’ve successfully made several links and helped keep hundreds of acres in agricultural production, which is no small feat considering how complex and time-intensive farmland transitions can be,” she told Farm World.

In 2022, Ottawa County partnered with Washtenaw County conservation leaders to secure additional support for MIFarmLink, and by 2023, MIFarmLink transitioned to the Washtenaw County Conservation District to expand its reach across southeast Michigan.

Since Oct. 1, 2025, the online platform has continued to grow its reach and build momentum through a new statewide expansion and its partnership with the Michigan Association of Conservation Districts as a truly statewide initiative, Dohner said.

“That’s allowing us to bring more local conservation districts into the effort and serve every corner of the state,” she said. “We also stay closely connected with other Farm Link programs in neighboring and partner states, learning from their successes and sharing best practices so that MIFarmLink can continue to improve and scale effectively.”

She said there have been quite a few major changes since MIFarmLink was established: “When I took on leadership in 2023, we overhauled the website, launching a ‘Find a Farmer’ feature that finally allowed two-way connections directly through the platform. As of October 2025, we officially expanded to serve all of Michigan.”

She said the platform has received positive feedback about MIFarmLink over the years: “We send an exit survey to everyone who uses the platform – more than 700 people so far – and the responses have been encouraging. Many users say they appreciate having a Michigan-based resource to connect with farmland opportunities – something that didn’t exist before.

“We’ve also heard a lot of great anecdotal feedback from both landowners and farmers who’ve made real connections through the program,” she added. “My favorite moment was when I heard from a farmer’s neighbor’s dentist who had heard about MIFarmLink. If that’s not two degrees removed, I don’t know what is. It really shows how word about the program is spreading through Michigan’s farming communities, and beyond.”

One of those many connections has been Thomas Lodge, who has been involved in agriculture most of his adult life, studying botany, creating a mushroom wholesale business, and building an organic farm outside of Detroit.

He wanted to focus on his mushroom business full time, but didn’t want to completely give up the farm: “I kind of built up the brand and was in some markets and got the organic certification, so I was really looking for somebody that kind of shared the same vision as I,” he told Sophia Saliby, of Michigan State University’s WKAR 90.5 FM, in an Oct. 28 interview.

He then posted on MIFarmLink and found Simon Yevzelman. Yevzelman and his wife, Caitlin, wanted to launch new livelihoods in agriculture and were excited about finding Lodge’s property: “It’s one in a billion that a turnkey farm was available 30 minutes from our door in Dearborn Heights,” Simon noted.

This is the second year the Yevzelmans have grown vegetables, flowers, mushrooms and herbs to sell to customers on the land they lease from Lodge under the name, Cedar Field Farm. “One of the reasons we’re able to do a second season is that leasing, which hadn’t been on our radar, was so much less of a risk than purchasing land, like I said, putting all the infrastructure on and doing all these capital heavy investments,” Caitlin told Saliby.

Dohner said, “(MIFarmLink’s) next focus is on building partnerships with local agricultural real estate professionals and conservation districts, mentorship programs, and developing new tools and templates to support farm succession planning.”