1. Land Tenure

Almost 40% of farm acreage in the United States is leased and 70% of those leases are annual rather than multi-year.³⁴⁶ This provides a substantial barrier to perennial production since perennial crops require farmers to invest over longer periods of time. Alley cropping, for example, generally takes five to seven years to turn a profit.³⁴⁷ Congress should address this barrier by providing zero-interest farm ownership loans with low payments during the initial years of the loan and by funding a land bank that would purchase land suitable for perennial production and lease it to farmers utilizing perennial practices for up to 99 years.³⁴⁸