What are the goals of the Plan?
The Plan is organized around three overlapping goals:
- Accelerate the permanent protection and stewardship of farmland. Once farmland has been converted to other land uses, it will never return to agriculture.
- Increase access to farmland. Enabling farmland accessibility requires equitable, affordable, and identifiable opportunities and options.
- Support and enhance the viability of farms and farmland. Successful farms are one of the best tools for protecting farmland.
Why is the Plan important?
We are losing agricultural land and farms fast! Between 1997 and 2022 Massachusetts lost 113,000 acres (2022 Census of Agriculture). That’s about 3.7 times the size of the land area of Boston or 1.8 times the size of Martha’s Vineyard. According to American Farmland Trust’s “Farms Under Threat 2040” Report, between 2016 and 2040 Massachusetts, without additional investment and policy changes, is projected to lose 1,200 farms and 50,000 – 89,000 acres of farmland. The farmland that we do have is often out of reach of farmers and aspiring farmers, primarily due to cost. And farms themselves struggle to remain viable, and their tenuous financial sustainability risks the loss of even more farmland to other uses.
How will the Plan be implemented?
This is a plan for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
The Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources (MDAR) is promoting, monitoring, and facilitating implementation of the Plan, building momentum from existing programs and initiatives. It is an integral part of the Commonwealth’s climate and natural resources initiatives.
Partnerships and collaboration are essential. Non-profits, municipalities, land trusts, other state agencies, educational institutions, private entities, and many others have key resources, capacity, expertise and/or jurisdiction that will be needed for successful implementation.
The plan also identifies opportunities for the legislature to make policy and fiscal choices to support farmland goals.
In recognition of how much work is contained within the Plan, MDAR created a new staff position – Farmland Action Plan Coordinator – to support coordination between all of the partners and to assist with implementation of tasks. Katharine Otto can be contacted at Katharine.s.otto@mass.gov.
The Farmland Action Plan incorporates equity principles and include several equity-related actions and tasks. Effective implementation of equity goals will require broad engagement, empowerment, and coalition-building. Katharine Otto is working closely with MDAR’s EJ Team to engage with equity partners early in the process to ensure that Historically Underserved Farmers and the organizations that support them are involved.
The Plan
The Farmland Action Plan is a big plan! There are lots of strategies, actions and tasks – and all the supporting information needed to support those. Please see the bottom of this section for the full plan, including with several translations.
MDAR has been re-packaging the plan into bite-sized pieces for specific audiences. Please visit "More about the Plan" for powerpoints, videos and meeting notes.
The 2024 Progress Report is another resource that summarizes key elements of the plan and outlines next steps. Please visit "Updates and Progress Reports" for more information.
Additional Resources
More about the Plan
The following are summaries of meetings for specific audiences:
- Land Trusts
- 9/18/2024 MDAR and the Massachusetts Land Trust Coalition discussion with land trusts - meeting slides, video and/or meeting notes.
- Buy Local organizations
- 9/11/2024 MDAR discussion with Buy Local organizations - meeting slides.
- Urban agriculture organizations
- 10/24/2024 Urban Ag Coalition presentation - meeting slides and video.
- December 2024 MDAR discussions with urban agriculture potential partners - meeting slides and meeting notes (coming soon).
- Regional Planning Agencies
- 11/20/2024 MDAR conversation with RPA staff - meeting slides, video, meeting notes (coming soon).
- Conservation Districts
- 12/16/2024 MDAR conversation with Conservation Districts - Meeting slides
- Food Policy Councils
- 1/13/2025 MA Food Policy Council Advisory Committee presentation - meeting slides.
- 1/17/2025 MA Food Policy Council presentation - meeting slides.
The following are summaries of meetings for more general audiences, including conferences and summits:
- Potential Partners
- 10/29 thru 11/4/2024 MDAR hosted discussions with potential partners - meeting slides and/or meeting notes.
- 1/13/2025 Potential Partners Q&A Session - No slides, meeting notes (coming soon)
- Massachusetts Farm Bureau Federation Annual Meeting
- 12/04/2024 MDAR facilitated a workshop discussion - slides and discussion notes (coming soon).
- Massachusetts Food System Forum
Additional resources will be posted as they are created.
Updates and Progress Reports
Newsletter/ email updates are shared with partners approximately monthly. They include information about implementation and spotlight parts of the plan. Previous email updates – August 2024, October 2024, November 2024, December 2024.
2024 Progress Report
This first progress report shares updates on first steps towards implementing the Plan. It reflects initial conversations with potential partners who may lead or assist with implementation of tasks within the Plan. Next steps are being shared so that potential partners and interested individuals can see how everything fits together, and then start to discuss. View the December 2024 Progress Report. The accompanying Implementation Matrix will be released in the new year.
Upcoming events and meetings
- Plan Q&A Session for Potential Partners. It will be a meeting with no presentation – instead the content will be guided by questions and comments from potential partners. It will be held on Monday, January 13th from 11am – noon. Email Katharine.s.otto@mass.gov for details
- More to come in the new year!
Sign up for newsletter/email updates
We are updating our contact lists for the Plan as we embark on the implementation phase. Many people were involved in the development of the plan, but participation in implementation is open to anyone. It will take a broad group of committed stakeholders to reach the Plan’s ambitious goal, and we want to hear from you if you or your organization are interested in participating.
Please email Katharine to let her know of your interest – whether to help with implementing the plan, or simply staying in the loop on its progress! Katharine.S.Otto@mass.gov