This year, we sent out a Christmas letter to all of our landlords – the folks whose land we lease in order to grow the crops our animals eat – to thank them for being an important part of Majestic Crossing Dairy. The land is a vital component of our farm, and with two thirds of our land being rented, it’s important for us to maintain good relationships with our land lease partners.
Different people have different approaches to their land, so we work and adapt to reach a common goal: caring for the land and making it better, so it can continue to provide feed for our animals and cash crops to support our farm. Just like people, some parcels of land are more sensitive than others. So we take the needs of each particular spot into consideration as we develop our land care plans, planting cover crops and feed crops as well as recycling manure to fertilize the land. It takes a lot of planning and constant monitoring, too.
Like so much in farming, leasing land from different people is about relationships. Some of the landowners are retired farmers themselves, while others are adult children of farmers and may be living two or three states away. They all have different needs and different visions for their land, and we have to be attuned to that.
Another impact of leasing land is that the rent money we pay to landowners goes back into the local economy. Whether that means paying local taxes that support schools, investing in a business, or supporting a family, we feel good that we’re part of keeping resources local.
