Northwest Arkansas Farmland Protected for Local Food Access

Farmland Loss Threatens Northwest Arkansas Communities

Arkansas has lost more than 4,800 farms and 166,000 acres of farmland in just five years, according to the USDA’s most recent Census of Agriculture. For farmers in rapidly growing regions like Northwest Arkansas, the math is brutal: land values are rising, ownership is out of reach, and investing in a farm you don’t own is a gamble most can’t afford to take.

The Conservation Fund’s Farms Fund addresses that gap directly — purchasing at-risk farmland, placing permanent conservation protections, and connecting skilled farmers to the land through affordable, patient pathways to ownership. The recently protected farm in Berryville will be leased to Kings River Produce for four years, with an opportunity to purchase at the end of that period. With permanent protections in place, the land will remain in agricultural use regardless of what development pressures surround it.

A New Generation Farmer Gets a Path to Ownership

Jacob Rowell has been working on farms since he was a teenager. Over the years, he built real expertise — growing tomatoes, squash, salad greens, and livestock, and developing the market relationships that make a farm business viable. But like many next-generation farmers, he was operating on leased land with no clear path to ownership. He couldn’t justify the infrastructure investments his operation needed. Scaling felt out of reach.

When Jacob connected with the Farms Fund, that calculus changed. With the land secured and a clear road to farmland ownership ahead, he can invest in the farm the way it deserves. He plans to work alongside a mentor farmer on production techniques and market development, and to create hands-on learning opportunities for new and beginning farmers as they work toward their own operations — keeping agricultural knowledge, and agricultural land, in the community.

The Farms Fund: Protecting At-Risk Farmland Near Growing Cities

The Conservation Fund’s Farms Fund launched in Atlanta in 2022 with a clear mission: protect farmland before it’s lost to development and create affordable ownership pathways for the farmers who work it. Since then, the program has expanded to Chicago, Charlotte, and now Northwest Arkansas — regions where agricultural land is under the most acute development pressure.

Across all four regions, the Farms Fund has matched 24 farm businesses to permanently protected land, conserving approximately 1,820 acres that might otherwise have been converted to development. Each partnership follows the same model: act before the land is gone, connect it with a skilled farmer, and create a real and lasting path to ownership.

In Northwest Arkansas, that work is just getting started.