From Heirs to Owners: Securing the Future of Marginalized Growers
Francine Miller, pictured, is senior staff attorney and adjunct professor with the Center for Agriculture and Food Systems at Vermont Law and Graduate School. (Photo courtesy of Francine Miller)
Senior attorney Francine Miller outlines how resolving heirs’ property disputes and increasing access to capital are essential steps in building a stable, commercial urban agriculture sector.
By Jill Dutton
The Packer
February 10, 2026
Excerpt:
One of the most pervasive, yet overlooked legal hurdles in agricultural law is heirs’ property, a situation Miller explains as when land is passed down through generations without a formal will or probate process. This lack of administrative oversight leaves families with land but no clear legal claim to it.
Miller says of the staggering impact this has had on land retention: “Farmers have lost a ton of acres — hundreds of thousands of acres of land — due to title to the property not being transferred when the ancestor dies, and so the heirs then own land without clear title.”
Without a clean deed, a farm business effectively hits a ceiling. These growers are often ineligible for federal programs or traditional bank loans, preventing them from investing in the infrastructure required for high-volume commercial production.
“The heirs hold the land without clear title, and it really limits the possibilities of what they can do to generate wealth and use that land in more productive ways for farming,” Miller says.
This legal instability feeds into a broader crisis for the next generation of American growers. According to Miller, legal and physical access to soil remains the primary bottleneck for the industry’s growth.
“The National Young Farmers Coalition has said that land access is the No. 1 barrier to beginning farmers farming,” she says.
Read the complete article here.
Source: https://cityfarmer.info/from-heirs-to-owners-securing-the-future-of-marginalized-growers/
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