It can feel almost impossible for a young entrepreneur to break into the agricultural industry today.

The traditional model often asks someone with very little capital to spend or borrow enormous amounts of money before the farm has produced anything.

But there is another model that is less talked about and much more effective.

Don’t buy the farm first.

A beginning farmer can lease land instead of buying it.

That leaves more of their resources available for working capital.

This is especially true in regenerative operations because they are inherently low-input, capital-light businesses.

Regenerative farmers don’t necessarily need a giant tractor or expensive barns.

And if they can access a long-term lease, they don’t even need to own the land.

But there is a problem.

Finding suitable land, negotiating long-term leases, and convincing landowners to take a chance on a beginning farmer is difficult.

That is where government can help.

Instead of simply offering another loan, government could help secure long-term access to the land itself.

Federally funded and locally operated agricultural programs could acquire land or lease land from private landowners to make acreage available to qualified small farmers.

The farmer could then receive a long-term lease through the program at a reasonable rate.

Programs could prioritize soil improvement and local food production to help address broader national issues with soil degradation and the concentration of food production as well.

And this idea isn’t completely foreign to American agricultural policy.

USDA already pays landowners through conservation programs and enters into contracts lasting 10 to 15 years.

The system already exists.

We should think bigger about what it can do.

And after several years of successful operation, there could even be a pathway for the farmer to purchase the property.

Government wouldn’t be running the farm.

It would just be lowering the barrier that keeps people from starting one.

And that could become even more important if artificial intelligence and automation eventually displace significant numbers of workers.

Nobody knows how large that disruption will be.

But small agriculture is a durable form of small business built around producing something society will always need.

And regenerative agriculture makes the proposition even more interesting.

A successful farmer can produce food while improving soil and the environment.

The private market can do some of this on its own.

But waiting for individual landowners and young farmers to somehow find each other will never produce the scale America needs.

Sometimes government should do more than watch a problem develop.

It should help organize a solution.

We already have the land.

We have people who want an opportunity.

And we have agricultural programs capable of connecting the two.

Small farmers don’t necessarily need a government handout.

They just need a government willing to help give them a fighting chance.