Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

The Minnesota Department of Agriculture’s Rural Finance Authority (RFA) is now accepting applications for the 2024 Beginning Farmer Tax Credit, an annual program available to landlords and sellers (asset owners) who rent or sell farmland, equipment, livestock and other agricultural assets to beginning farmers.

Asset owners can claim credits in one of the following categories in a given tax year for each beginning farmer they lease/sell to: Cash rentals, share crop rentals, farmland sales, all other sales (equipment, livestock, etc.)

Total funding available for the 2024 Beginning Farmer Tax Credit program is $4 million. The credits are funded in a first-come, first-served manner, so applicants are highly encouraged to apply early in the year before the stated deadlines. Both the asset owners and beginning farmers must submit applications with lease and/or sale documents to be eligible for funding and to hold their place in line. They may apply before sales close, if needed.

Qualifying asset owners can include individuals, trusts, or qualified pass-through entities renting or selling land, livestock, facilities, buildings or machinery used for farming in Minnesota to a beginning farmer. Through changes made to the program during the 2023 legislative session, parents, grandparents and siblings are now eligible for the tax credit if they sell farmland to a direct family member. However, this does not apply to leases or non-land sales (e.g., livestock, vehicles).

A beginning farmer is defined as a Minnesota resident with the desire to start farming or who began farming within the past 10 years. They must provide positive projected earnings statements, have a net worth less than $979,000 and enroll in, or have completed, an approved farm business management program.