Professor Matt Lobley was the sole U.K. delegate invited to speak at the Changing Lands, Changing Hands Conference in Denver, Colorado.

Hosted by Land for Good, in cooperation with United States Department for Agriculture (USDA), this event brought together international participants from a wide range of sectors to exchange knowledge, experience and research findings.  They were able to share and discuss best and emerging practices, policies and programmes and look at how practitioners, educators and policy makers can improve how farms and ranches are accessed, held and transferred.

Participants were able to choose from a diverse range of workshops and roundtable events on the subject of farm and ranch access, tenure and transfer, with the aim of advancing workable strategies for equitable land access, secure and sustainable tenure, and successful transfer of farms and ranches.

Much of Professor Lobley’s research has focused on understanding influences on, and impacts of, farm household behaviour and one of his main areas of research expertise is the farm family life-cycle and succession issues. Professor Lobley’s session, entitled International Perspectives on Farm and Ranch Transition, was co-delivered with John Baker (International Farm Transition Network and Iowa State University) with whom he co-directs a collaborative international project (FARMTRANSFERS) exploring farm succession and retirement in a range of different social, economic and political contexts. 

Speaking after the event, Professor Lobley said “despite diverse political, economic and cultural contexts across the globe, family farmers face remarkably similar issues when it comes to farm transition and although responses have to be context and family specific, the message I keep hearing in this conference and which I repeated in my session, is that the three factors which are key to successful succession are communication, communication, communication. Unfortunately, that is often easier said than done and there is much we in the U.K. can learn from our friends in the United States about the effective facilitation of farm succession”.