Helping landowners receive fair market prices

Mar 04, 2019

Tillable connects landowners with interested growers

By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com

An online marketplace is helping landowners receive fair compensation for land they wish to lease.

About 40 percent of all U.S. farmland is rented and the national farmland rental market is worth about US$32 billion annually. But many owners aren’t sure of their land’s value, said Corbett Kull, CEO of Tillable.

“We’re trying to let landowners understand what their land is worth, and we want to connect them with great farmers,” Kull told Farms.com. “Some landowners might not have a great network of growers to draw upon, and this gives them access to a larger pool of farmers who might want to rent their farm.”

Landowners and prospective renters must each create individual profiles on Tillable’s website.

“A landowner goes onto Tillable to create a listing for their farm,” Kull said. “We would then set an offer period for the farm. Growers also make accounts and profiles that includes years of experience, size of operation, tools they use and farming techniques.

“Once growers have completed their profiles, they can make offers on farms in their area. The process is a blind offer, which means other growers can’t see the offers. And landowners can’t see any of the offers until the offer period has passed. Once it has passed, the landowner can choose the grower they want to rent the land to.”

After the two parties have established a relationship, they can sign a lease agreement and transfer payments through Tillable.

Landowners and renters also have the flexibility to customize the lease, Kull said.

“We have a standard lease that we recommend landowners use, but they could also upload their own to the platform if they want,” he said. “Customization can take place around certain things the landowner wants. That can be anything from insurance coverage amounts, to making sure ditches are mowed or ensuring best practices are followed.”

In addition, Tillable collects relevant farm performance data, Kull said.

“For the most part it’s centered around yield, the crop planted and any soil test data that’s taking place throughout the growing season,” he said. “It gives the landowners the ability to take a history of the farm, what has taken place, how the soil is being treated and how the crops are performing.”

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.