Trust across fencelines: A framework for extrafamilial land tenure relationships between non-operator landowners and beginning farmers and ranchers

Abstract

The future of the United States’ food system depends on the agricultural industry’s ability to support beginning farmers and ranchers (BFRs) in their pursuit of stable land tenure. Many BFRs lease or rent land to grow their operations and overcome barriers to land access. Non-operator landowners (NOLs) are an increasingly prevalent landowner audience with potential to form extrafamilial land tenure relationships with BFRs. However, further research is needed to understand how these relationships form and are sustained over time. This qualitative study interprets the lived experiences of BFRs, NOLs, and Land Link coordinators who facilitate extrafamilial land tenure relationships through the lenses of Proximity Theory and Social Exchange Theory to create a framework for trust development. We found trust between NOLs and BFRs in land tenure relationships evolves through three phases. The first phase, prerequisite trust, depends on the clearly established expectations of each party, their baseline motivations, and at least one of the five types of proximity (geographic, social, cognitive, institutional, organizational). The second phase, fragile trust, arises when the NOL and BFR engage in negotiated exchanges with the support of a third-party advisor, such as the Land Link coordinator. The final phase, resilient trust, relies on the continuous reciprocal exchange of time, energy, and resources by the parties involved as they take risks on each other’s behalf to create something new. The resulting framework expands the tools available to third-party supporters like Land Link coordinators as they help to steward land tenure relationships. The results of this study can also inform outreach materials to BFRs and NOLs as they pursue relationships with each other and create more opportunities to bring new producers and innovative practices onto the agricultural landscape.