The Conservation Fund’s Farms Fund
In follow up to the presentation Stacy Funderburke made at the 2026 GGA Annual Meeting, we invite you to dive deeper with this working session on the Farms Fund.
Register Now on Zoom
Thursday, September 24, 2026, at 11:00 am
Open to staff and trustees/board members
At our Annual Meeting in Tifton, Stacy Funderburke from The Conservation Fund gave us a clear look at what's at stake for Georgia's farmland, and a concrete way funders can help. Georgia has lost 20% of its farmland to development in less than a generation. The Conservation Fund's Farms Fund is one of the few tools built to reverse that trend while building wealth for the next generation of farmers.
The model is straightforward: the Farms Fund buys at-risk farmland, supports the farmer with infrastructure and technical assistance, permanently protects the land with a conservation easement, then sells it back to the farmer at an affordable, restricted value. Proceeds roll into the next acquisition. The results so far: 25 at-risk farms acquired across four regions, 1,946 acres secured, 46 farmers supported, and 3 farms already transferred permanently to farmer ownership.
The Farms Fund's $22 million revolving fund is currently built mostly from The Conservation Fund's own capital and philanthropic grants, with only a small share coming from impact investments and loans. There's an opportunity for foundations to make a program-related or mission-related investment that returns principal while doing conservation and economic development work most grant dollars can't.
This was exciting to many of you in the room in Tifton!
We're hosting a follow-up call to go deeper on how this works in practice: how the loan structure is set up, what terms and timelines look like, and how to bring it to your investment committee or board. This is a small group working session, not a pitch, so bring your questions.
