Growing up, I spent part of every summer at what my siblings and I called “Grandpa Camp.” It wasn’t really a camp — it was my grandparents’ farm outside of Highwood, Montana, where five generations of my family built their livelihoods and our history. We spent long days following my grandpa around the fields, patching cracks in grain bins, and learning a little more each year about the family farming business.
To my siblings and me, the farm was permanent. It never occurred to us that one day it might not be.
When a family farm can’t make it to the next generation, that’s not just a family’s loss. Too often, land leaves agriculture altogether — sold, developed, or fragmented, its capacity for food production and open space gone for good. That should worry conservationists as much as it worries farm families.
Conservationists and farmers don’t always see eye to eye, even though they have more common ground than some might assume. Conservationists work to protect open space and the wildlife habitat it provides. Farmers, by staying in business, keep land open, free of development and able to deliver conservation benefits. That’s enough common ground to make collaboration a powerful force for the future of both conservation and farming in North America.
