Who gets the family farm? Michigan farmers are now finding their successors online

America’s farmers are getting older, and they may not have a relative or friend who wants to take their land over when they retire.
In Michigan, these farmers have a new option to connect to people who want to get into agriculture with an online platform that may remind you of an old-school personals column.
The program is part of a growing trend nationally.
For most of his adult life, Thomas Lodge has been involved in agriculture, studying botany, creating a mushroom wholesale business and building an organic farm outside of Detroit.
A few years ago, he wanted to focus on his mushroom business full time, but didn’t want to completely give up the farm.
“I kind of built up the brand and was in some markets and got the organic certification, so I was really looking for somebody that kind of shared the same vision as me, Lodge said.

It’s one in a billion that a turnkey farm was available 30 minutes from our door in Dearborn Heights.