On a small farm in Verona, something big has been happening. It involves a landowner, a plant scientist from New Jersey, and a lot of pawpaw trees.
After years of searching for farmland he could afford, Adam D’Angelo was on the brink of giving up his dream. Like so many beginning farmers, he kept running into the same obstacle: land prices driven out of reach.
Across Wisconsin, millions of acres of farmland are changing hands as current farmers retire. At the same time, it’s increasingly difficult for new farmers like Adam to access that same land.
Each time a farm goes up for sale, there’s a real risk it’ll be lost to commercial or residential development. And for new farmers, competing with those offers can be nearly impossible.
In 2020, landowner E Makar decided they were ready to sell their family farm. But they also wanted to protect it from future development, so they contacted Groundswell’s Yimmuaj Yang for help.
Landowner E Makar
Could Groundswell help E find the right person to buy the property—someone who would love and care for the land like E’s family had done for so many years before?
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Adam D’Angelo grew up in Sussex County, New Jersey, where cows outnumbered people. His grandparents owned a nursery and garden center, and his neighbors owned a Christmas tree farm. Adam’s parents managed both businesses.
When the owners of each business decided to sell, the D’Angelo family experienced a dual loss all too common among farmers who don’t own their land: They lost their income as well as their access to the product still growing in the fields.
From a young age, Adam understood the importance of farmers owning their own land. But he didn’t know yet how difficult it could be to find affordable land.
Adam D’Angelo, Breeding Operations Manager at Savanna Institute
Adam’s love of nature and knowledge of tree farming came to fruition during college at Rutgers University. There, he discovered a passion for plant breeding while working at a lab that bred hazelnuts for disease resistance. Then graduate school brought Adam to Madison, where he studied plant breeding and genetics.
Adam always knew he wanted to be a farmer, and now he was ready to live his dream. Unfortunately, cost was the major barrier keeping him from owning land.
“It was so hard to buy farmland because of how expensive it is. I started to contact everyone and every organization helping farmers access farmland.” –Adam D’Angelo
After two years of searching for land, putting in offers, and being outbid by developers, Adam was ready to give up. Then in 2025, he got a call from Bonnie Warndahl at Renewing the Countryside, one of Groundswell’s partner organizations.
Was he still interested in buying farmland? Because someone with land in the Town of Verona was looking for a buyer…
With your support, Groundswell can help more people like Adam access land.
With help from Renewing the Countryside’s Farmland Access Navigator Team and American Farmland Trust, Adam applied to buy E Makar’s property, called Elizabeth Rock Farms.
Back at Groundswell, Community Director Yimmuaj Yang was hard at work developing our Farmland Ownership Program. This program provides a pathway to ownership by making farmland more affordable using what’s called the Buy Protect Sell+ (BPS+) model.
Here’s how the BPS+ model works: A land trust like Groundswell buys farmland using public and private funding. Then we protect the land from development forever with a conservation easement. Removing the development rights from a property reduces the sale price, making it more affordable for a new farmer.
“[Landowners] still get a payout, but they do something good. They know [the land’s] going to someone who appreciates their land and is going to care for it.” –Adam D’Angelo
In January 2026, Adam finally became the owner of his own 21-acre farm.
Aerial view of Elizabeth Rock Farms and surrounding properties in Verona
This spring, Adam’s excited to get planting: pawpaw trees, heartnut trees, vines of hardy kiwis, honeyberries, chestnut trees, serviceberries, and cornelian cherries! If everything goes according to plan, one day there’ll be a herd of sheep grazing in the pasture among the orchards.
“Getting to plant these seedlings and watch them grow into trees, and watch them make food for people for years to come…is really exciting.” –Adam D’Angelo
About half of the property is wooded, and Adam intends to keep it that way. Rather than being cut down, the forest will harbor willow trees, mushrooms, ramps, and other valuable products. And the pine trees will continue to provide homes for the local red-tailed hawks, which happen to be great for natural vole control.
This is why protecting farmland can mean so much more than protecting crop fields: Farmers like Adam plant crops that grow year after year. Perennial crops reduce soil erosion into nearby creeks and improve air quality by absorbing carbon. Over time, farms like this one contribute to a more resilient food system that can better withstand climate change.
So much is possible—but only with your help.
Elizabeth Rock Farms is just one example of the exciting opportunities ahead of us. Let’s work together to make them happen. Here are some other projects on the horizon:
- improving water quality and public access in the Black Earth Creek valley by protecting hundreds more acres of prairies and farmland along local streams
- keeping high-quality soil available for agriculture in the towns of Dunn and Dunkirk by preserving several more farms with conservation easements
- conserving forests, wetlands, and farmland along Token Creek in DeForest
I urge you to give today. Your contribution will go far but stay local.
Adam’s farm is one piece of a much bigger picture. When you help protect farmland, you’re also safeguarding wildlife habitat, improving water quality, and strengthening the health of entire ecosystems. Your support makes it all possible, ensuring our community can support both people and nature long into the future.
Thank you for partnering with us to protect special places forever!