We have big news to share! And it’s good news for farmland access. Liberty Prairie Foundation’s Northeast Illinois FarmLink program is transitioning into The Land Connection’s new Illinois FarmLink program.  And as part of that transition, both of us - Nathan and...

On November 12, over forty landowners, land seekers, and service providers gathered at Soulful Prairies for the fourth annual Common Ground Gathering. These events bring together the northern Illinois agricultural community to network, trade resources, and make new...

Tim and Deb Friedman have a long history of renting land to young farm families in their community. Now they’re looking to take the next big step - retire and sell their eight-acre farm (six acres tillable) in Marshall County, which is located about 40 minutes north...

  Finding the right help can make all the difference when you’re farming, searching for land, or figuring out the future of your farm. With that in mind, we want to introduce you to a service provider who comes highly recommended - Curt Ferguson of The Estate Planning...

Marjorie Sawicki works with new farmers through Food Works’ Southern Illinois Farm Beginnings program. One beginning mushroom grower she works with struggles with slow Internet speeds and sometimes has to wait 20 minutes for invoices to be uploaded to customers for...

A good field walk gives you fresh ideas for your farm and business. It also provides the opportunity to be inspired and reenergized by the farmers giving the walk and those attending, too.  The free field walk at Tulip Tree Gardens in Beecher, IL (Will County) on...

Marty Thomas signs all of his emails with an interesting tagline: “Software developer – Trying to be a farmer.” The two professions might not seem to go hand-in-hand, but after talking with Marty and perusing his website, Kakadoodle, there’s no doubt this interesting...

  Mark and Petra Zinniker are seeking a farmer/farm family to help steward their organic, biodynamic farm into its next phase. This opportunity is particularly unique because the Zinnikers are planning to directly involve the community in their succession planning and...

  Last month, a diverse mix of widows, wives, daughters, and women farmers gathered at Riley Town Hall for the The Land Conservancy of McHenry County’s (TLC) first Women Caring for the Land Learning Circle gathering of 2022. TLC has been hosting learning circles for...

Last February, Silvia Abel-Caines, a garlic farmer and ruminant nutritionist for Organic Valley, made a farmer profile on our site. We were impressed by her drive, enthusiasm for teaching, and passion for engaging the community. At the time, Silvia had her garlic...

  On May 25th, our team at Northeast Illinois FarmLink presented to the second Stateline Farm Beginnings cohort of 2022  - an energetic and thoughtful group of seven farmers looking to grow their farm business knowledge and experience. Stateline Farm Beginnings is...

Travis pushes open the door and it’s all there- the stanchions, the vacuum line, the gutter. Sure they’re rusted, crumbling in places, and covered in spider webs, but you can feel the buzz of the once thriving dairy that used to be there.  Travis explains that him and...

Here’s the pickle that many beginning farmers with a few years of farming under their belt find themselves in – they’re eager to buy land so they can invest in the soil, build infrastructure, and grow their business, but farmland prices are very high, the farmers...

Travis and Mariah are two determined young farmers who have been around the block. They have experience with leasing land, assessing countless properties, and using FarmLink sites in three states. Based on this experience, they’ve gained some land access insights that...

Soulful Prairies is approx. 80 acres of diverse prairie, pasture, woodland, and a pond. Click here to enlarge map.Linda Bruce, owner of Soulful Prairies in Woodstock, knew two things would be true of her farmland when she purchased it 12 years ago:  it would allow her...

How do we say that we feel our succession planning webinar on March 9th is really worth watching without seeming really immodest? Well, here’s the video link so you can judge for yourself. (Click here or video link below to watch.) This webinar brought together two...

Break ground on your farm dreams in spring 2022!  We were excited to hear from our friends at Angelic Organics Learning Center that a second Stateline Farm Beginnings® cohort will be happening this spring. We share this news because the following are true: (1)...

Kaitlin Soto and son holding a sample of her company’s juices that are made with organic, non-GMO, natural fruits and vegetables and are cold pressed and bottled in glass.Kaitlin Soto founded Flourish Juice Co. in 2016 and operates her business out of Joliet,...

Emily and Levi Powers of Alden Hills Organic Farms with their pasture-raised Belted Galloway cattle.Levi Powers of Alden Hills Organic Farms recently let us know about two full-time job openings offering good pay, benefits, and hands-on experience raising livestock...

Landowner Nina Langoussis came across our farmlink website and described it as a “godsend.”  Nina is on the lookout for partners or tenants to graze livestock on her land and is hopeful that networking through the Northeast Illinois FarmLink community might surface...

Jordan Blakeslee stands on the farmland he has just leased in Libertyville.  (Photo: Jordan Blakeslee)Jordan Blakeslee grew up eating fresh, homegrown foods from his family’s gardens. This helped cultivate a lifelong interest in health and nutrition that was rekindled...

Last week we had the privilege of seeing six year-old bison being released into their new 30-acre fenced pasture at the Pleasant Valley Conservation Area in McHenry County. About a year prior, we walked that same land with three family members of Ruhter Bison LLC and...

Jim Kurczodyna presenting to the Kane County Agricultural Committee in mid-November.The Kane County Agricultural Committee recently invited me to share information about our land access work as well as my family’s own journey to owning farmland. Some Kane County board...

Realtor.com and Zillow.com are two of the top real estate search websites in the country and list many farmland properties. We want to show you how these websites can be powerful tools in your search for farmland to purchase. To do so, we created this 15-minute video...

Linda Bruce has carefully crafted her vision for Soulful Prairies since acquiring 80 pristine acres in Woodstock about 11 years ago. It is a place of community, tranquility, and beauty, offering equine therapy, dinners and events, a farm stay rental, and more.  Part...

Mike Mallory of Good Life Farms started thinking about Thanksgiving well before November. He placed the order in spring, and two batches of baby turkeys (or poults) were delivered on his leased farmland in Lake Villa about mid-summer. Mike moves his mobile coops daily...

Our Buying Rural Farmland 101 webinar brought together a realtor, ag lender, and farmland appraiser who shared a lot of valuable tips and insights pertaining to your farmland search. Deanna Ballweg (real estate), Paul Dietmann (lending), and Andy Weidner...

Our friends at Angelic Organics Learning Center (AOLC) in Caledonia specialize in training and educating local food farmers across our region in practical farm business skills. One of their programs is a yearlong farm business course called Stateline Farm Beginnings...

Wundrow Farm is the latest farm profile on the Northeast Illinois FarmLink site. The property is located in Sharon, Wisconsin, just over the Illinois-Wisconsin state line, and goes up for auction on November 2.  It offers 40 acres zoned A-1, a two-story farmhouse with...

Our friend Mike Downey at Next Generation Ag Advocates has asked us to share an unusual and large-scale farmland transition opportunity.  Mike’s client is seeking farm successors to transition into and take over a 2,000-acre regenerative farm operation in northwest...

Our FarmLink website is being used by ever more farmers looking for land who all have unique farm dreams and search criteria. We wanted to introduce you to a few farmers who have recently created profiles on our site. You can view their profiles on the Northeast...

The developing perennial food forest of Prairie Wind Family Farm on land leased from the Liberty Prairie Foundation in Grayslake. The fruit and nut trees are protected by white tree tubes.There are so many beautiful things about farming with trees. Whether you are...

Agroforester Casey Dahl (left) leases land from Brattset Family Farm (represented during this field day by Kirsten Jurcek) in Jefferson, Wisconsin.Your land access journey as a farmer is not over when you sign a lease with a landowner.  We know of several lease...

The Forest Preserve District of Will County (FPDWC) made history on May 7th when it officially released a bid request for a farming license for the 147 acres of tillable land at the Jackson Creek Forest Preserve in Green Garden Township.  The fact that a forest...

Sandra and Pinto in her spring-planted backyard vegetable garden, surrounded by perennial plants already in bloom. A woman reached out to me and wanted to talk about farmland. She wasn’t real specific. Was she a farmer? A landowner? I had no idea. But why not? So we...

Diversity of plants and animals is key to any thriving ecosystem. Here in the Midwest, however, we have become accustomed to seeing field after field of the same crop rotations – the opposite of diversity. And the resulting loss of soil health and wildlife has become...

While there are more basic resources out there about farmland leasing, we wanted to make you aware of a couple that are Illinois specific. Farmer or landowner, experienced or new - these tools can help you strengthen your foundation in farmland leasing. Illinois...

Silvia Abel-Caines, who recently posted her profile on the Northeast Illinois FarmLink site, is a farmer with a very specialized interest – GARLIC.  While many recognize this specialty crop’s culinary status, she promotes its medicinal virtues. Garlic, she says, is...

Born in rural Poland, Karolina Kowalczyk of Blacksmith Acres has a deep love for growing and preparing beautiful, delicious, and healthy foods. Having completed the Stateline Farm Beginnings course through the Angelic Organics Learning Center in the spring of 2018,...

Photo Credit: Maren ProkupIs there ever a situation where you, as either a farmer or farmland owner, wouldn’t want a written lease? The general wisdom of the land access world is no. And we’d agree with that in almost every case. But that doesn’t mean an oral or...

The Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) owns and manages 35,000 acres of farmland, almost all in corn and bean production, across the state. As you can read here in an Outdoor Illinois Journal article, the IDNR is in the process of launching a program that...

You don’t want to take purchasing farmland lightly.   If the initial investment isn’t a daunting enough commitment of your financial resources, think of the ongoing investment of building and maintaining soils, facilities, and infrastructure on the land. And you may...

When searching for farmland, or managing your existing farmland, you want to use every tool at your disposal. The Web Soil Survey (WSS), run by the Natural Resource Conservation Center (NRCS), is a free and powerful resource you’ll definitely want in your toolbox....

The first time we spoke with Beatrice Kamau, a native of Kenya who has now lived in Chicago for over 20 years, we felt there was something unstoppable in this soft spoken yet confident woman.   A nurse and single parent to her 17-year old daughter, Beatrice has been...

  Practical Farmers of Iowa put on a great annual conference last week. Here are three insights we wanted to share: Fair Leasing with Flex Leasing: The session entitled Rethinking Farmland Leasing (led by Michael Downey of Next Gen Ag Advocates) caused us to, well,...

Diversity of plants and animals is key to any thriving ecosystem. Here in the Midwest, however, we have become accustomed to seeing field after field of the same crop rotations – the opposite of diversity. And the resulting loss of soil health and wildlife has become...

Cliff McConville and Anna Lipinska (pictured above) run All Grass Farms on long-term leased land from the Kane County at the Brunner Family Forest Preserve in Dundee. Since 2017, they have been actively seeking additional farmland as consumer demand has outgrown what...

While much of the land access arrangements we see in the region is through leasing, purchasing land is ideal for long-term security. Can that be done on a tight budget? Our own Jim Kurczodyna (pictured above with his family and their cows) has experience doing just...

At the start of our recent Farm Leasing 101 webinar, Rachel Armstrong of Farm Commons stated that joy (yes, joy!) is fully within reach in your farm lease relationships.   If you’ve had a painful lease experience, you might think Rachel is off her rocker. What kind of...

We see a unique variety of farmers using our FarmLink site – from ducks and dairy cattle to hemp and specialty grains.  But when Matt Ruhter filled out a profile for his family’s farm, their specialty stood out – bison! David and Kathleen Ruhter began Ruhter Bison...