The Farmers Land Trust

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Contact information, map and directions, contact form, opening hours, services, ratings, photos, videos and announcements from The Farmers Land Trust, Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), PO Box 195, Cookeville, TN.
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11/11/2026

SUMMARY OF PROJECT AGREEMENTS AND TIMELINES:

• Annie and Jay Warmke have donated $150,000 worth of the market value through a bargain sale and are providing a $200,000 Seller Financed Installment Sale at a 0% interest rate!

• The Farmers Land Trust provided $50,000 to Annie and Jay at closing, took ownership of the farm deed, and entered into a promissory note. This note stipulates remaining payments to the Warmke's will be in $50,000 increments beginning this December 15th, and then each December in 2027, 2028 and 2029.

• When the deed transferred to The Farmers Land Trust, Sarah and Jason Ricks, the next generation land stewards at Blue Rock Station farm, got a 99-year lease to the farm from The Farmers Land Trust.

• Once the full budget (which can be seen on our website!) and fundraise needs have been met, Blue Rock Station Farm will then be transferred from The Farmers Land Trust into the Blue Rock Farmland Commons!

🌟 To keep this project's momentum going and have your donation DOUBLED, please join the community of donors to help make this farm transition a success! 🌟

https://www.thefarmerslandtrust.org/commons/blue-rock/ -wall

Annie Warmke
Sarah Ricks Callahan
Jason Ricks
Kristina Rossi Villa
Ian McSweeney
Blue Rock Station Green Living Center

11/10/2026

Watch your donation get doubled in real time on the donor wall when you join in the collective action of acquiring farmland for community ownership and for affordable and equitable tenure for next generation regenerative farmers!

An anonymous donor is matching all donations to the Blue Rock Farmland Commons for the acquisition of Blue Rock Station Farm today through Thursday, November 28 up to $10,000! With this match and your support, the next payment on the farm will be secured and we will be on our way to raising 2027 payment!

Thank you for donating to make collective ownership of farmland a reality!

https://www.thefarmerslandtrust.org/commons/blue-rock/ -wall

You can email us at [email protected] to make gifts through a DAF, wire transfer, or stocks, and you can mail checks to The Farmers Land Trust at:
PO Box 195
Cookeville, TN 38503

THANK YOU!

11/09/2026

You're invited! Board member of The Farmers Land Trust, Sayota Knight, has organized and is hosting an educational, inspiring, and fun event celebrating Indigenous culture that is FREE and open to the public this Friday, November 13 at 6 pm CST.

1 William L Jones Dr. Cookeville, TN 38501.
Derryberry Hall Auditorium at Tennessee Tech University.

Share with your friends and we will see you there!

11/07/2026

And add collective ownership. 🌟🙌🏽🔥

Blue Rock Station Farm is a women-led and male-supported farm transition and land access project focused on food forest production, regenerative agriculture, and sustainable living, and has an anonymous donor DOUBLING all donations that come in between now and Nov 28 to help us meet our fundraising goal!

The Farmers Land Trust made the down-payment payment and acquired Blue Rock Station farm, and signed a 99-year lease granting long-term, secure, affordable and equitable land access to next generation stewards! 🎉

But we're not finished. We still need to raise the money to cover the annual $50,000 payments each December through 2029. That means we still need to raise funds to fully secure the property and ensure it remains in community ownership for generations to come.

With donations being matched and your support, the next payment on the farm will be secured and we will be on our way to raising 2027 payment!

Thank you for donating to secure the future of the farm!
https://secure.lglforms.com/form_engine/s/PVGh-At7WTQP1chYrvVRIg

Find out more about the Blue Rock Farmland Commons at:
https://www.thefarmerslandtrust.org/commons/blue-rock/

You can email us at [email protected] to make gifts through a DAF, wire transfer, or stocks, and you can mail checks to The Farmers Land Trust at:
PO Box 195
Cookeville, TN 38503

THANK YOU!

11/06/2026

We made the down-payment payment and acquired Blue Rock Station farm, and signed a 99-year lease granting long-term, secure, affordable and equitable land access to next generation stewards! 🎉

But we're not finished. We still need to raise the money to cover the annual $50,000 payments each December through 2029. That means we still need to raise funds to fully secure the property and ensure it remains in community ownership for generations to come.

🌟MORE BIG NEWS!🌟
An incredible anonymous donor is going to DOUBLE every donation that comes in starting today through Thursday, November 28 up to $10,000! With this match and your support, the next payment on the farm will be secured and we will be on our way to raising 2027 payment!

Thank you for donating to secure the future of the farm!

https://secure.lglforms.com/form_engine/s/PVGh-At7WTQP1chYrvVRIg

You can email us at [email protected] to make gifts through a DAF, wire transfer, or stocks, and you can mail checks to The Farmers Land Trust at:
PO Box 195
Cookeville, TN 38503

THANK YOU!

Blue Rock Station Green Living Center
Annie Warmke

11/05/2026

Steven Stoll, author of "Ramp Hollow: The Ordeal of Appalachia," has a new book out that discusses possibilities for land reform and includes The Farmers Land Trust and the Farmland Commons model!

Find a link to it on the "Media" page of thefarmerslandtrust.org!

BOOK DESCRIPTION:

A sweeping meditation on the historical relationship between humans and land that challenges us to rethink common beliefs

Land is the natural environment that humans have defined, shaped, and endlessly reinvented. In this lyrical narrative, Steven Stoll explores ways of thinking about land through social, cultural, political, economic, and ecological lenses.

Stoll tells the stories of the first Sumerian farmers, the medieval commons, the origins of private property in seventeenth-century England, the politics of colonization in what became Pennsylvania, strip mining in West Virginia, and the relationship between race and land reform in the twentieth century, as well as of a map drawn at the end of the Ice Age. Moving deftly from anthropology to biblical analysis, from the Doctrine of Discovery to the American civil rights movement, he reveals the philosophical underpinnings of our relationship to land, upending many of our assumptions.

In situating contemporary views of land within the longer arc of human history, Stoll argues that many of the virtues found in older forms of land have been lost in the turn away from territoriality and commons, and toward commodification and private property. Rethinking the past, Stoll maintains, can open the future to the old and new and to the possibility of reform.

11/04/2026

How they met: "Upon arrival, he opened the barn door and met Kristina."

How they started working together: "They shared tenure at Agrarian Trust."

How they started The Farmers Land Trust: "They made the leap of faith and bet on themselves. Both were motivated to create and run an organization that went beyond webinars and conversations and instead built pathways for actual farmland to be removed from the speculative real estate market and made available to communities in perpetuity."

Read the full article that shares all the details in between in our latest blog post, "What The Farmers Land Trust Does – Installment 1: Creating The Farmers Land Trust"

https://www.thefarmerslandtrust.org/what-the-farmers-land-trust-does/

Kristina Rossi Villa
Ian McSweeney

11/03/2026

It's time to give care, time, and attention to ensuring successful transitions of farmland from the older generation of farmers to the younger generation of farmers, because *THAT is how we will solve land access for young and beginning and Black and Brown farmers.*

New and aspiring farmers, especially Black and Brown farmers, identify land access as a primary barrier to farm viability.

Meanwhile, existing and retiring farmers must destroy what they have built over a lifetime or more by selling their farms for development and speculation simply to retire.

We have an opportunity to create a positive impact on the transition of some of the 400,000,000 acres of farmland, which is going to be bought, sold, or inherited in the next two decades. This is one of the largest transfers of wealth the world has ever seen, and how that land is transferred and held matters now more than ever.

It's time to change the way we value land and farms, and it's time to honor and respect the work that has gone into building the soil and infrastructure needed to make a viable farming business on these legacy farms.

👏🏽 It's time to give care, time, and attention to ensuring successful transitions of farmland from the older generation of farmers to the younger generation of farmers, because THAT is how we will solve land access for young and beginning farmers.👏🏽

We are doing this through the Farmland Commons.
Learn more and join us at thefarmerslandtrust.org

11/02/2026

We're protecting farmland AND ensuring the people stewarding the land are the ones getting to decide how the land is managed and what happens on the farm day-to-day.

The creative and innovative Farmland Commons model utilizes the 501(c)(25) tax code, which is legally only allowed to own land and then essentially lease that land out. It can not do anything else, meaning it can not get involved in programmatic or educational work on the land, it can't be the farm manager, etc.

Using this structure to own and hold land is how we are then able to convey EVERY use right to the next generation farmers through the 99-year lease at a super low cost.

Through this model, farmers get all of the independence and autonomy they want out of land ownership without the crushing debt of a mortgage or an extractive market lease rent.

They can't sell the land, but their children can inherit it, they can own their home and infrastructure on top of the land, and the money they would be giving to the bank or absentee landowner each month is now theirs to invest into their farm business, retirement, or whatever they choose.

Land access WITH control.
Land access AND tenure.
Land Acess PLUS equity.

Thefarmerslandtrust.org

10/30/2026

Land that grows food for community should be a community resource.

The market does not place any value on the gradual and measured development of vitality built by insightful and dedicated land stewardship.

The market will sell the property to the highest bidder and it is often the case that the farm is built over, or maybe worse, becomes a semi-preserved relic with a dedicated mowing team and empty barn.

When a farm is sold into development, it is not only the productive land that is lost. The biodiversity that had been cherished and protected on the land is lost, the deep wisdom of the land gleaned carefully by the farmer fades away, and the community of people—who derived sustenance from the farmer’s efforts—are forced to find nutrition elsewhere.

The Farmers Land Trust is advancing the Farmland Commons, an alternative and democratic model of land ownership that places control and governance of the land in the hands of communities and small farmers.

The Farmland Commons are freeing farmers from the burden of rent and high-rate mortgages, and enabling communities to prioritize growing food using regenerative practices and building a liveable future.

Learn more at thefarmerslandtrust.org

Address

PO Box 195
Cookeville, TN
38503

Telephone

+18334327658

Website

http://thefarmerslandtrust.org/

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