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True Detox With Laura's avatar

EXCELLENT article! Thank you for writing this and putting it out into the world.

The plight of the aging American farmer makes my mind immediately jump to Paul Wheaton, whom I had the pleasure of hearing speak at the 2022 Exit & Build Summit in Bastrop, Texas. I appreciate what he offers with his vast website and in-person skill-building retreats, but the former overwhelms me and the latter are out of my price range.

I’ll definitely check out more of your content now, because of this spot-on, to-the-point post. And you’ve inspired me to start my own Substack, where I’ll be sure to restack this very 🔜!

I’m not a 20-40yo, but at 50+ I’m embarking on a homesteading journey with my husband and 3 school-age kids overseas. :-)

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Sharon Valenti's avatar

The idea of encouraging farmers to put their land in a state trust sounds wonderful. At least that way they can ensure that the land will never be built on. That would probably work best for farmers who have no children. The next best would be as you suggested - lease a portion of their land to start your own farming or go in with a group of friends to lease 5 acres and each have their own section to farm.

In addition to developers wanting to snap up the land to build on, I wonder what people like Bill Gates, who now owns 242,000 acres of farmland (in addition to his other types of real estate holdings) plans on doing with that farmland?

I moved to NE section of Georgia and there's still quite a bit of vacant land for sale (prices have become so high recently) and there's tons of development going on here too.

Thanks for all you've shared of your experience and how to get funding from USDA and all the trials and tribulations you've been through.

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