Small acreage and new landowner education - Land-Grant Impacts

chicken in a field

Small acreage and new landowner education

Environmental Stewardship, Story 2024, Community Development/Engagement, Extension, Pest Management, Profitability/Competitiveness, Southern, Texas, Texas A&M University, Water Resilience/Management

Texas is experiencing rapid population growth in urban areas and, increasingly, in rural and urban-adjacent lands. This has created a rapid increase in first-time landowners and small-acreage landowners across the state. These landowners often lack knowledge on basic land management and conservation, leading to poor and varied management outcomes.

Texas A&M AgriLife Extension developed a network of programs across Texas, and across all scales of access. The cornerstone program for this is the Northeast Texas Small Acreage & New Landowner Conference, held in Farmersville, TX, and county and regional programs that bring new landowner education into rural communities. These programs focus on the basics such as assessing the needs of properties, building operation plans and establishing a foundation of agricultural and conservation knowledge. Field demonstrations show skills such as brush pile building, land evaluation and using digital tools to help make management decisions.

In 2023, 17 counties across Texas partnered with the Small Acreage & New Landowner program to host eight programs reaching 325 landowners managing 22,012 acres. Program evaluations found that these producers estimated the economic value of new landowner programming at $33/acre. The estimated total economic impact of the programs in 2023 was $224,000.

View the full statement on the NIDB.

Project supported by state appropriations and Smith-Lever (3b&c) funds.

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