By Valeria San Juan
Having grown up on a farm in central Illinois, Jenny Ifft, new assistant professor and Mueller Family Sesquicentennial Faculty Fellow in agribusiness and farm management in the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, is personally familiar with the value research and extension outreach can offer farmers.
Her time spent in her family farm made her particularly aware of specific issues farmers face – including the challenges of acquiring good land and farm financial management. Now, the research and the extension program Ifft is working to develop reflects this first-hand knowledge.
“Growing up, obtaining farmland was a stress for my family” Ifft said, recalling the relief her parents and family felt when people offered land to rent. “The problem with farmland is that it doesn’t come up for sale very often, it may come up once in a generation or two generations because it is passed along.”
In her research and extension program, Ifft hopes to explore issues related to farmland values and the factors that affect the acquisition of farmland, such as a farmer’s access to credit. She notes the past few years have seen a boom in the farmland market, with many people from the farm sector and outside investors looking to buy. Though farmland values have begun to stabilize in many regions, Ifft said it continues to be a dynamic environment.
“New York is particularly interesting because everything you see at a national level is happening here, a lot of urban pressure, development pressure, and many other things that drive up land value,” she said.
With some of the best farmland sales data, Ifft said New York is the perfect place for her research, while her new position at Cornell poses a different set of challenges from her previous appointment at the USDA. And while she is new and finding her niche, Ifft said she’s confident the collaboration, advice and existing academic and extension programs will support her and her work.
Valeria San Juan is a student writer in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
