Carl Druskovich, a seventh-generation southwest Michigan fruit farmer who still has to work full-time as a dentist to make ends meet, is tempted by the frequent offers to buy pieces of his land for as much as $20,000 an acre.
“I can see why some people are just saying ‘forget it,’” he said.
He wants to preserve his 400 acres so his godson can farm it after him, avoiding the fate of thousands of farmers who’ve sold out to developers as prices rise. Since
2012, 5% of Michigan farmland has disappeared.
But Michigan may not offer Druskovich much help.
This year, lawmakers set aside $1.9 million for local governments statewide to purchase farmland development rights to permanently preserve its use for agriculture. The typical data center developer would pay more than $3 million for 200 acres, about the average size of a farm in Michigan.
Among the 29 states with permanent protection programs, Michigan ranks 22nd in spending on a per-farm basis, preserving less than half a percent of its total farmland, according to the Farmland Information Center. Delaware, by comparison, has spent about 10 times as much as Michigan over the last three decades and has preserved nearly a third of its farmland.
“Michigan as a whole has not embraced permanent protection of farmland as well as states out east and on the West Coast,” said Becky Huttenga, agriculture and economic resources coordinator for Ottawa County.
The Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development’s Farmland and Open Space Preservation Program has temporarily preserved about 3 million of Michigan’s 9.5 million acres of farmland by providing tax incentives to farmers who agree to development restrictions.
But that program only asks farmers to keep their farm for 10 years.
A state agriculture department spokesperson declined to comment.
Thousands of Michigan farmers have sold off more than 6,600 farms covering nearly a half million acres from 2012 to 2022, as prices rise due to increased demand from housing, solar and data center developers. In all, 1.6 million acres have disappeared in the Midwest from 2001 to 2021, according to a University of Illinois study.
Stemming that tide is important, researchers said, because farming is a $126 billion industry in Michigan and having locally grown food is healthy and protects national security.
“Land rich but cash poor” farmers face “big time” pressure to sell to developers who come knocking with seven-figure offers, said Nikki Rothwell, a Michigan State University Extension specialist and coordinator at the Northwest Michigan Horticultural Research Center.
She and others said state and federal policies are needed to make farming lucrative.
“It’s all about money,” Rothwell said. “You gotta have these growers make money.”
Nowhere has the loss of Michigan farmland been more pronounced than in west Michigan.
Nearly half of the lost farms and most of the state’s lost acres were in west Michigan. It is home to the state’s “fruit belt” along the Lake Michigan coast and still produces about a third of the state’s corn, nearly a quarter of its soybeans and more than a quarter of the state’s cows.
Once the state’s leader in agricultural acreage, west Michigan now ranks second, behind mid-Michigan.
Rothwell, of MSU Extension, said farmland loss is “especially alarming” in west Michigan because of the specialty crops grown there, such as apples, blueberries and peaches.
West Michigan built nearly 47,000 homes between 2012 and 2024, according to the most recent census data. That’s more than any other region except southeast Michigan.
Data centers and solar projects get the headlines, but housing is the biggest threat to farmland, said Huttenga.
“This area of the state has very rich soil for farming, but it’s also very close to the lakeshore and close to Grand Rapids, so it’s also very desirable to live in,” said Sue Boomgaard-Rasch, an Ottawa County fruit farmer who’s working to preserve 80 acres of her 300-acre farm. “Once the ground has had concrete and drainfields and wells dug into it, it’s really not compatible with agriculture. You can’t reverse that.”
Ottawa County lost nearly 42,000 acres of farmland between 2012 and 2022.
Nearby Van Buren County lost even more — close to 44,000 acres.
There, the county Land Preservation Board founded in 2005 “has really upped its game over the last couple of years,” said Lisa Ransler, the county’s community services director.
Thus far, the board’s saved 81 acres of a single farm through the state’s purchase of development rights program.
But this year, it’s asked the state to help fund the preservation of two additional farms, including Druskovich’s Decatur fruit farm.
Now, the county relies on trying to get a slice of the state’s $1.9 million pie. The local land board has discussed asking the county to seek a property tax to help fund farmland preservation, but dropped the plan because “people get millaged out pretty fast,” Ransler said.
In addition to seeking to buy development rights for farms, the board works to encourage communities to preserve land through zoning.
“Growth is inevitable but sprawl is optional, and communities need to plan how they want to see their future,” Ransler said.
But experts said the problem goes beyond policy: Farming is hard and getting harder, expensive and getting more so, and the nation’s aging farmers are running out of reasons to stay in business.
“I hear from my guys all the time, they say, ‘Nikki, it’s not very fun to farm anymore,’” said Rothwell, of MSU Extension.
In 2024, Michigan farmers made about $2.6 billion in net income after receiving $187 million in federal assistance, according to federal data.
That’s down from $4 billion in profit the year before and the least profit they’ve seen since the coronavirus pandemic hit in 2020.
Regulatory pressures require more paperwork, federal immigration policies have scared off a lot of workers, and trade policies have made it hard to export crops and import supplies, Rothwell said.
“The ones that really do it have that just built into their souls,” said Ransler, of Van Buren County.
Druskovich, the Decatur fruit farmer, has it in his soul.
If he doesn’t get the development rights grant this year, he’ll just apply again next year. If he doesn’t get it then, he’ll apply again the following year. He wants to use the money to buy 30 acres his farm surrounds and upgrade the farm’s watering system and other technologies.
His godson — who also works as a full-time electrician — lives on and works the farm with him and will take over when Druskovich retires. Druskovich wants to make sure there’s still a farm to take over.
“I would like to go to the grave, after putting my life into this, knowing it’ll be used for farming,” he said.
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This story was originally published by Bridge Michigan and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.
