Dan Kuebler is out on a hot August morning on what used to be his farm.
Kuebler grew fruits and vegetables on 30 acres in Ashland, Missouri, and for decades he sold his produce at the Columbia Farmers Market.
"Ashland was a little, bitty, sleepy town in '77 when we bought it," Kuebler said.
Then, small towns in southern Boone County started becoming homes to those working in nearby Columbia or Jefferson City. Kuebler watched farmland on his 2-mile dead end road get sold and broken up into parcels. As he neared retirement, he needed to come up with a plan for the future of his farmland.
"I don't want it split up into five acre plots … and become a development. That is just like — that's sacrilege," he said.
Kuebler began farming at the age of 40. For the next 33 years, he grew dozens of varieties of vegetables and eventually branched out into making fermented foods such as sauerkraut, pickles and kimchi. He balanced managing the farm along with his other job as an in-home physical therapist.
Kuebler is passionate about local farmers providing food for their community. He was an active seller at the farmers market and advocated for the permanent shelter that now houses the market on the west side of Columbia.
As new development encroached on his neighborhood, Kuebler wanted to protect his farm from being broken up.
"I don't want to sell it to the highest bidder. I want it to stay in farmland. So how should I do that?" he said.
The demand for more housing often comes at the expense of farmland. Flat, cleared fields are ideal for development.
Now some agriculture advocates are encouraging farmers and landowners to use a legal tool to ensure their land remains farmable.
They believe the need is critical. At least 50 million acres of farmland in the Midwest is set to change hands by the end of the decade due in part to the average age of farmers and landowners.
Kuebler worked with a local land trust to attach what's known as a conservation or agriculture easement to his property deed. It dictates that the farmland must remain farmland no matter who owns it — forever.
"You cannot subdivide it, you cannot sell it off for residential development or commercial development. That is the guiding principle," said Nick Shapiro, executive director of the Greenbelt Land Trust of Mid-Missouri, the organization Kuebler worked with.
Land trusts do the work of ensuring current and future property owners follow the stipulations laid out in agriculture easements.
"The initial landowner who donates the easement knows, not only is there this legal document out there that binds future owners, there is also an organization out there that is required to look after that easement in perpetuity and to defend it and to make sure that it is upheld and respected," Shapiro said.
'Best use' of land
In recent years, about 2,000 acres of American farmland a day has been lost or compromised by development, according to American Farmland Trust, a national land preservation organization. The group estimates another 18.4 million acres — an area almost the size of South Carolina — will be converted by 2040.
Development pressures come from urban sprawl, when metropolitan areas continue to creep outward, paving over once-rural places. But what's known as "low-density residential" development is also a threat.
Housing built in the country on large plots of former farmland repurposed nearly 7 million acres of agricultural land between 2001 and 2016.
American Farmland Trust's analysis shows rural housing development is especially high in Missouri, elsewhere in the Midwest and in the South.
Josh Wright is with American Farmland Trust, where he helps landowners through the often yearslong legal and financial process of securing an easement to protect land from development.
"People who have spent their entire lives working their land, whether it be in their family for many generations or not, you become so attached to it and all of your effort could be snatched up and paved over as soon as you sell the property," he said.
But placing development restrictions on a piece of land could reduce its value by up to 65%. Exactly how much depends on a number of factors, including location, nearby development pressures and how restrictive the easement is.
"Whenever you go to sell your property, it's going to be appraised, and that's going to be judged at best, highest dollar — and they call it best use in the industry," Wright said.
In other words, the most profitable use, which farming generally isn't.
"Unfortunately, it's probably considered the worst use," he said.
Twelve years ago, Congress expanded federal easement initiatives, setting aside about $450 million a year to compensate farm owners for a portion of reduced value of their land through a program known as ACEP-ALE, which stands for Agricultural Conservation Easement Program - Agricultural Land Easements.
That funding, which has since been increased to $650 million annually, filters through nonprofit organizations, such as land trusts, state and local agencies, or tribal governments, to essentially buy a property's development rights from the farm owner.
Eric Gramlich works with Ozark Land Trust, a conservation organization focused on preserving land in Arkansas and Missouri.
Although the government can provide a financial cushion to soften the blow of the drop in value a piece of property under easement will experience, Gramlich said it's unlikely to be the landowner's most lucrative option.
"Even those payments would struggle to keep up with the demand and the price of land for commercial development or large scale subdivision development," Gramlich said. "So I think the financial means, even for willing land owners, that's a big challenge for them, and also a big challenge for us to rise up and … be on some sort of a playing field with the other competing interests for that land."
More than 1 million acres of farmland have been preserved through easements since the federal program began in 2014. But more than half of that land is in just three states: Montana, Wyoming and Colorado.
Currently, no farmland in Missouri has been restricted from development under the federal program. Illinois has 445 acres of farmland under permanent easements and Iowa has 2,320 acres.
Gramlich said that's because there still aren't that many land trust organizations in Missouri, and the agricultural community is still learning about the option.
"I'd like to think that we'll be gaining more efficiencies in the program now that it's been established, but it is generally a multiyear process to get the application in, the contracting paperwork, and then to actually do the boots-on-the-ground work of getting the easement in place," he said.
President Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill increased the federal easement program funding to $650 million annually, to be used to preserve both farmland and wetlands.
But preserving farmland through easements is time consuming, while losing farmland to development can happen rapidly.
A few years ago the Natural Resources Conservation Service, the agency that administers the easement program, made an effort to "streamline" multiple parts of the process including land appraisals, surveys and certifying organizations such as land trusts.
In mid-Missouri, Shapiro hopes the land owners out there who value their farm's legacy will consider preserving it with an easement.
"The older farmers who are looking to get out might be willing to take less than top dollar if they know that there is someone who really wants to take their land and run it and manage it in a way that is consistent with their shared values," Shapiro said.
His organization, Green Belt Land Trust, was formed to preserve natural areas such as forests and wetlands. It expanded its work to farmland as development pressures increased.
"So much of mid-Missouri's not just economy, but culture and heritage is based in farming," Shapiro said. "There is an important role for us to play in helping to preserve that heritage as well."
Giving up the farm
On the north side of Kansas City, Kansas, Rick Mareske has been growing berries and forest farming on 40 acres of land for the past 20 years. His food gets to local customers through a community supported agriculture, or CSA, subscription program.
Mareske and his wife are weighing options for the future of their business and farmland. They considered an easement for their property.
"The cons are, it's expensive," he said. "It's like 20, 25 thousand dollars just to do it, and then you lose money."
Mareske's land is a financial asset he's counting on for retirement income. He said he doesn't want the years he spent caring for his land to be erased, but he can't afford to sell for less.
"We're trying to make it as beautiful as possible and as enticing as possible for someone to buy it and keep it going the way we have it," he said.
With or without an easement, Mareske hopes the future of his land includes farming.
Meanwhile, in Boone County, after 33 years Dan Kuebler has stopped selling produce and preserves at the farmers market. He still goes each Saturday to buy his food for the week and catch up with his former customers as he shops.
"I see them and we talk, and it's like I really didn't lose my community," he said.
Kuebler estimates that it cost him about $20,000 to place an easement on his land, most of that cost coming from the land survey and appraisal. He didn't take advantage of the federal ACEP-ALE program and its compensation offer, even though his 30 acres of fields, forest and pastures dropped about $90,000 in value once development rights were stripped.
He sold the land to another local farmer last year. The easement requires the land remain in agriculture and that the methods used to grow crops are sustainable or regenerative.
There's a small, old cabin on the property, and one of the more unique stipulations of the easement is that Kuebler gets to spend time there, and on the land, until he dies.
"I really couldn't give up the farm totally because I (am) so attached to it," he said.
Copyright 2026 KBIA 91.3 FM