A California nonprofit program that connects property owners with farmers seeking land to lease is expanding to San Diego.
California FarmLink Land Access program helps landowners earn extra cash while giving beginning and small-scale farmers a place to grow.
“It's kind of a matching service, almost like a dating service,” Andy Williamson said. He spent about three years farming at a community garden in the Tijuana River Valley before looking to expand. That’s when Williamson signed up with California FarmLink.
The agency matched him with a property in Ramona owned by Katie Shilts, her husband and a few friends who had been looking for a tenant farmer.
“We wanted a farmer who did regenerative farming," she said. "We had been learning a lot about how great that is for the environment, and so we wanted to find the farmers who were knowledgeable in that.”
The Shiltses had tenant farmers when they owned a farm in Wisconsin, but after moving to San Diego, they didn't know where to start. They also wanted to find the right tenant. California FarmLink helped craft the ad that led the Shiltses to Williamson.
The two matched because Williamson was also concerned about the environmental impact of farming.
"You know, water pollution, air pollution, that kind of thing,” he said.
Pro bono support
The nonprofit California FarmLink was founded in 1999. Matching farmers and landowners is just one of their services.
“We help farmers, ranchers and fishers with getting access to knowledge (and) capital as well as land,” said Katia Pilar Carranza, a senior program associate at FarmLink.
That training is helpful because, for many landowners and tenant farmers, this might be their first time dealing with a land contract. FarmLink walks them through it.
“So in this work, we serve as multi-partial advocates representing both parties," Pilar Carranza said. "And we support with everything from like negotiation to finalizing the leases or agreements. And it's all pro bono.”
Shilts said that was very helpful during the process.
“Once we had made that connection with our farmer, we were able to use their (FarmLink's) resources to create the contract that we have with the farmers." she said.
The support was also helpful to Williamson, the tenant farmer. “(The land contract) was quite a scary component of the process," Williamson said. "I never signed a contract for land, previously, so it was great to have the support of an organization that knew exactly what needed to be in the contract, and that was critical to the process.”
The goal is to create equitable land agreements that support long-term land tenure, Pilar Carranza said.
Combating farmland loss
According to San Diego County’s latest crop report, in 2024, there were a little more than 207,000 acres of commercial farmland in the region, down nearly 23% in a decade.
Pilar Carranza said the region is losing around two farms a week to development and other factors.
“Right now, we have some of the highest land prices here and in the country,” she said.
Keeping the land as farmland was part of why Shanley Miller and her business partner bought the 25-acre property next to her avocado farm in Hidden Valley.
"They want to develop it and build five houses right next to us,” she said.
Miller didn’t want Hidden Valley to lose its character. It’s a quiet, rural community where property lines aren’t marked by fences, allowing wildlife to roam freely.
“It's beneficial for the coyotes," she said. "(They) take care of the gofers and squirrels that could come out for our trees. So it's a win-win.”
Miller and her business partner didn’t really have a concrete plan for the property until she found FarmLink and her first tenant through the program.
“It's a small family who just didn't have enough space in their yard to grow all the vegetables that they wanted," she said. "They may eventually expand it, but for now, it's a great start. They can start growing all the things that they need.”
Being new to the program, Miller said they are both learning how it works and what its challenges are. But she likes that it gives aspiring farmers access to land and lets them try their hand at growing food.
As for Williamson, after three years of farming with the Shiltses in Ramona, he's already renewed his lease and is thinking of adding an orange orchard.
