Brooks Lamb has spent his career trying to answer a hard question: who will own rural America?

As Special Advisor for Strategic Communications at American Farmland Trust, Lamb works on one of agriculture's most urgent and least-discussed problems, the more than 300 million acres of U.S. farmland set to change hands over the next two decades as current owners retire or pass away.

Recorded live at the Old Salt Festival on the Mannix Ranch in Montana, this conversation covers why succession planning gets avoided until it's too late, the three fates that often befall transitioning farmland, and the creative leasing and policy tools, from Tennessee's Greenbelt law to a Kitsap Peninsula land-share arrangement, helping some families keep their land in agriculture. Lamb also talks about Love for the Land, his book on why farmers keep farming against the odds, and Landed, AFT's new podcast on farm transition stories from across the country. 

Full show notes and links at our website, thewildidea.com.