California Farmlink

FarmLink Offers a Variety of Programs and Services to Help You and Your Farm

Our services are offered free of charge or at minimal cost to farmers. Donations are always appreciated.


Linking Program

Our core land linking program matches retiring farmers and landowners with beginning and aspiring farmers, promoting continued agricultural production and the protection of farmland.

Farmer Advocacy

California FarmLink is often engaged in efforts to support better local, state, and national programs and policies to support small, beginning, and underserved farmers.

Workshops and Technical Assistance

California FarmLink conducts various workshops throughout the state annually. Workshops are typically co-sponsored with local grassroots agricultural organizations and are tailored to fit the interests of the region. If you are interested in learning about workshops we currently have scheduled or would like to discuss hosting a workshop in your area, please contact us at the main office at (707) 829-1691.

Farm Opportunities Loan Program

The Farm Opportunities Loan Program provides low-interest agricultural loans to farmers who may not be immediately bankable by traditional lenders. Applicants are provided with technical assistance in putting together a strong loan package, as well as continued coaching and support in order to ensure the long term sustainability of their farm business.

Intergenerational Farm Transitions

Many families face the challenge of addressing the goals of parents, on-farm children or heirs, and children or heirs who are not interested in living or working on the farm in the future. Resolving these issues can be difficult. California FarmLink can provide tools to help clarify goals and facilitate family discussions about the future of the farm business.

While facilitating intergenerational and intrafamily farm transitions, California FarmLink also advocates for farmland conservation and smart growth. We encourage the use of careful estate planning, conservation easements and other tools to help structure sustainable farm transitions. California FarmLink recognizes that farmers committed to stewardship of their land still must face the reality of their responsibility to take care of family financial needs. For this reason, we emphasize strategies that blend farm transfers and conservation in a manner that makes financial sense for family farmers in California.

Farmland Conservation

California is rapidly losing valuable farmland to development, and the rate of increase of those losses has changed dramatically in just the last few June, 1998 report by the California Department of Conservation (DOC) indicates that in the approximately 43 million acres of land studied, there has been a 13% increase statewide in the amount of land reported as committed to non-agricultural use, between the 1992-94 survey and the 1994-96 the Central Valley alone, between 1984 and 1994, 120,000 acres of farmland were converted to non-agricultural uses; over 70% of these acres were irrigated cropland.

Another indication of the increasing losses of farmland is cancellation of Williamson Act contracts. These voluntary contracts allow individual farmers to receive tax-benefits while they keep their land committed to agriculture for periods of 10 years of more. A DOC report on the California Land Conservation (Williamson) Act, published in September 1996, indicates a dramatic increase in the number of Williamson Act contract cancellations – for the four previous years the percentage of contracts canceled was a steady 1% while in 1994/95, there was a cancellation rate of 11%.

IDA Program

The Individual Development Accounts (IDA) program is the first of its kind in the nation. The program has attracted national attention in the 2007 Farm Bill negotiations. It helps farmers save money and build equity in order to buy an asset for their farm or to put a down payment on land.