Sacramento, CA — After years of advocating for equitable land access for small-scale and underserved farmers, Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF) is celebrating a hard-won victory: the State of California has just established the first-ever land access program dedicated to transferring agricultural land to beginning and underserved farmers and California Tribes and Native communities. The Farmland Access and Conservation for Thriving Communities Program was established through trailer bill language in Assembly Bill 178 that closely mirrors previous legislation (Assembly Bill 524 by Assemblywoman Lori Wilson). The program is funded through a $30 million set-aside included in Proposition 4 (Climate Bond, 2024), with the first $4.6 million appropriated through budget bill Assembly Bill 113. Both AB 178 and AB 113 were signed by Gov. Newsom last week.
“We have been working for years to reach this celebratory moment and take these critical first steps towards land reform. As the crisis of land access and affordability continues, with the state losing an average of four small farms per day, the creation of this land access program is a major opportunity for structural investments in our food and farming systems. CAFF is grateful for the legislature’s leadership — especially Assemblymember Lori Wilson — for championing this from the beginning. We are excited to work with the Department of Conservation to continue to build out this work.” – Jamie Fanous, Policy & Organizing Director at CAFF
For generations, small and mid-sized farmers have been pushed off the land they steward, while beginning farmers struggle to get started. As water dwindles, land prices rise, and investment firms buy up farmland, small and beginning farmers are forced to lease or quit. With five percent of landowners controlling over half of cropland in California, this is a first step toward expanding ownership among underserved farmers and making them a state priority.
“As a small-scale BIPOC farmer, the barriers to land ownership and land security are not hypothetical – they’re systemic and built into who gets to own land and who doesn’t. This program can finally break that cycle, giving the next generation the secure land access generations before us never had.” – Nelson Hawkins, Founder of We Grow Farm, Co-Founder, Ujamaa Farmer Collective, & CAFF Policy Committee Member
Date: September 21, 2026
By: Jamie Fanous, Policy & Organizing Director