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Email UpdatesProfiled in Sustainable Business Oregon
Leave a Comment Farmland LP is getting a decent amount of press lately. The most recent was last week in Sustainable Business Oregon.
Here’s a bit from the article:
For Cody Wood, a sheep farmer near Harrisburg, the appeal is financial.
By leasing from Farmland, Wood is able to spend more on his flock.
“I’m leasing 125 acres; it’s got $40,000 or $50,000 worth of irrigation equipment on it. I wouldn’t have been able to swallow that cost,” Wood said. “And I can produce a lot of animals on this farm.”
What he pays for his time on the land will depend on what he gets paid for his sheep. Farmland LP shares the risk with farmers, betting that their land will produce higher yields.
“One way or another we have to get farmland available to younger farmers and this is one way to do it,” said Harry McCormick, a Corvallis farmer and co-founder of Oregon Tilth, who served as an adviser to Farmland. “I like that the fact that it’s money coming out of the banking sector.”
Cody and I are in the middle of setting up the irrigation equipment right now and it is indeed quite an investment. But the payback is also very good as lambs will grow out quickly, to be ready for market in the fall and therefore not need over-winter care.
The article includes a few good pictures, including this one of a baby lamb and ewe taken on May 18th. Healthy lambs on their mother’s milk may gain about a pound per day. The newborns will often be walking within an hour of birth and be running around, quite agile and fast, in a couple of weeks.
Thanks to Christina Williams for writing this piece. It is nice to get some coverage in the regional press.
