GTF Podcast: What If Your Next 5,000 Acres Didn't Require a Bank?

What If Your Next 5,000 Acres Didn't Require a Bank? Joelle Faulkner is the CEO of Area One Farms, one of Canada's largest farmland operators and a company built on a simple idea: farmers who want to scale should not have to choose between their operation and their balance sheet. Area One works with farm families to co-invest in land acquisition and expansion -- providing capital without requiring the operator to carry all the risk. Joelle has structured and managed these arrangements across millions of acres. This is the conversation about what that model actually looks like, and when it makes sense.   What's Inside - How the Area One Farms co-investment model works and how farmers qualify - What Joelle looks for when evaluating a farm operation as a partnership candidate - The difference between a partnership structure that supports a farm and one that complicates it - How to scale acreage without over-leveraging the balance sheet - What farm families give up and what they gain in a managed farmland partnership   Related Episodes - Why the Biggest Buyer Can't Outbid the Farmer -- Robert Andjelic on who actually has the advantage in farmland markets - Driving the Transition Train: The Farmland Exit (May 2026) -- what the farmland conversation looks like when it is time to exit   Connect with Growing the Future Website: growingthefuture.ca YouTube: Growing the Future Instagram: @growingthefuturepodcast LinkedIn: Growing the Future Register for the Convergence Conference at convergence.ag and stay updated by subscribing to the Growing the Future Podcast at growingthefuturepodcast.ca.