Smaller owner-operators and renters along with retired farmers and their families control over 90 percent of all U.S. farms. However, as a group, we have been losing money and land for generations because we cannot compete in today’s commodity markets. In fact, we earn only 36 percent of total U.S. gross farm income. 1
“Mergers” Without Selling or Buying Farms
To get back in the black, I am inviting Omaha area farmland owners, farmers, and investors to organize new family farms. These local mergers will combine nearby farms to form efficient “regenerative production units” – without buying or selling land and without the need for farm management companies and other expensive intermediaries.
With production units, experienced landowners lease their farms to a single operator. With my company’s support, landowners will interview and select their operator and oversee all production and marketing operations. As explained below, we will provide professional planning, management, and marketing services including business plans and regular financial reports for landowners, farmers, and investors.
Combining contiguous and nearby farms is a low-cost way to reduce capital and operating expenses and increase market opportunities. In cases where the owners prefer to sell, a small landowner-controlled holding company could buy enough land to make an otherwise unprofitable unit viable.
As it is now, unmanaged consolidation and speculation have driven up land prices and turned millions of farmers into low paid farmhands. However, big farmers and food companies are not the cause of small farm failures. Smaller farms are unprofitable (ours included) because the owners and operators don’t have enough market power to stay in business. More market power will come from lower costs, more volume, better commodity prices, and in time, new income from farmer-owned retail food brands.
More Young Farmers
For those who say, “wait a minute, combining farms means fewer farms and fewer farmers.” That’s true if we raise only corn and beans. But diversification within and across production units will support a variety of specialty grains, fresh produce, meat, poultry, and dairy products for high-valve commodity and nearby urban grocery stores. All this will require many more farmers with specialized skills in regenerative production and marketing.
Our production units will help experienced and young farmers increase ownership rates by increasing farm profits and household incomes from farming. This new money will come from production unit economies, regenerative farming methods, and from upstream sales.
For better upstream sales, our marketing focus is on larger and better commodity contracts and on product and market research for farmer-owned retail food brands that can be sold in nearby cities, Omaha and Des Moines in our case. This work includes building relationships with local and regional food processors who are interested in working for farmer-owned retail brands.
Without these new income streams, farmers must continue to sell land to fund retirement, pay off debt, and settle estates. These sales break local ownership chains and block essential product and market development work that underpins farm new profits, retained earnings, and better household incomes from farming.
Incorporating Smaller Farms
To keep local ownership chains intact from generation to generation, landowners will be asked to incorporate their farms and their local production unit.
Briefly, incorporating family farms, 1) Helps landowners decide who will run the farm, 2) Creates rules on distributing farm profits to operating and non-operating family members, and 3) Requires shareholders to decide who will represent the farm corporation on the production unit board of directors.
Production unit bylaws will govern how the unit operator is selected and define the duties of the operator and board members. The bylaws will also govern how multiple production units work together to compete in commodity and retail markets.
Our company will support local attorneys and financial advisors with suggested legal and financial structures that can be refined as needed. Farm communities must have attorneys, lenders, and financial advisors who can work with landowners and farmers over time as land changes hands within families and farm communities.
Preliminary Business Plans
Because of differing soil conditions and capital costs, each farm will have its own plan. To help ensure a stable land base for unit operators and a steady income for farmland owners, our business plans will include cost and income projections based on five-to-seven-year leases tied to prevailing market prices indexed for inflation.
Business plans will include estimated savings from lower chemical, irrigation, equipment, and labor inputs. Lower unit costs and more volume will position production units to negotiate better forward contracts for crops and livestock. Our preliminary plans will be based in part on informal contract discussions with buyers of conventional and specialty crops and livestock.
However, to avoid over dependence on commodity markets, these plans will also outline product and market research projects for food ingredients and finished foods that can be sold under farmer-owned brands to food manufacturers and to retail grocery customers, starting in the Omaha area.
Selecting Production Unit Farmers
Once preliminary business plans are approved, our partners will invite experienced farmers to discuss production unit management and marketing. Interested producers will receive business plan summaries. My business partners and I will review qualifications and recommend applicants to the landowners.
Without landowner consensus on the operators, production units cannot be organized.
Local Risk Capital
We cannot afford to take on more debt while relying on government agencies and nonprofits to fund a visible presence in nearby urban and suburban grocery stores. These programs have not increased real farm income and profits. We are still losing farms every year.
With preliminary business plans in hand and with our support, landowners and production unit managers will host public meetings to attract local investors. These plans will help earn the trust of many qualified local investors – investors who sit at the same table with landowners and farmers.
With sufficient investor interest, preliminary business plans will be refined prior to contract negotiations. These negotiations will include landowners and farmers (with their local advisors) along with commodity buyers, direct sellers, and of course, investors.
Planning Fees
Since production units are new, we will not charge planning fees in the early going. ROI for our company and its partners will come from a negotiated share of new farm income as determined by audited financial reports that go to landowners, farmers, and investors.
Community Economic Development
With local farm profits in mind, I am asking commodity groups, farm advocacy organizations, county governments, churches, civic organizations, etc. to help us get the word out on meetings with landowners and farmers.
Page two on this website explains marketing and related issues in more detail. Page 3 summarizes my qualifications, introduces my business partners, and outlines my family history in farming.
Please contact me for an appointment.
Jim Steffen, President
Massena Corporation
402-317-2639
jim@massenafarms.com
Revised: 03-18-2026