For five generations, Keith Peters’ family farmed around Rickenbacker International Airport in Lockbourne, Ohio. Then bulldozers arrived.
“The property around that farm was sold for warehousing. There aren’t any farmers living there anymore,” said Peters, now 65. Over decades, he has watched development “steal the community” of his childhood.
As modern industry pushes into agricultural areas, farmers are losing land and facing added stressors such as busier roads, changing culture and non-ag neighbors who don’t understand farming.
Multigenerational farming families are caught between preserving legacy and accepting lucrative buyouts that could fund larger operations elsewhere. Even then, there’s no guarantee it won’t happen again because tech-driven development, such as data centers and solar, is becoming detached from population centers.
Today’s tech-driven development isn’t just pressuring farms adjacent to population centers. When developers throw outrageous monetary sums at farmland, it’s tempting to take the money and run. And across the country, countless farm families have made that choice as urban sprawl spirals outward from city centers.
When those sales go through, they can have a domino effect: Payouts from the deal often get funneled via 1031 tax-deferred exchanges into farming parcels three, four or 10 times larger in some distant neighborhood where the farmer sets up new operations. That, in turn, puts pressure on local land values and can foster resentment with new neighboring farmers.
Continue reading “When Development Comes to Farm Communities”




