New crowdfunding website aims to help people fund farmland

LEMOORE, CA -- Almond trees are blossoming with flowers and soon they will be blossoming with financial opportunities.

"What's good is now you can invest in farmland if you're not a wealthy individual. So before it was institutional investors putting in millions of dollars, buying an entire farm, managing it. Now you can invest for as little as $10,000 and own a portion of a farm," said Brandon Silveira, FarmFundr founder.

Silveira is a fourth-generation farmer and founder of FarmFundr, a crowdfunding website that wants to make it easier for people to own farms without having to do all the work.

The website just launched and allows everyday people to own crops.

"We have state of the art technology where you click invest, it goes into escrow and you own a farm. It's pretty much that simple," said Silveira.

A property in Lemoore is one of the first pieces of farmland people can invest in. Silveira is hoping to get 30 investors to buy into the farm.

Investments start at $10,000 and depending on the crop, you can choose how much of a risk you want to take.

"What we want to do is spread the risk out for investors as well. So you can invest in an almond orchard, a vineyard, some row crops. We want to people to spread their risk out, just like any other farmer," said Silveira.

Silveira said employees will take care of the day to day farming operations. He said investors will be able to monitor their investments through the web site and by pictures and videos. The goal is to keep people connected to the land and hopefully, their cash crops.

FarmFundr has three properties in the Central Valley now and if all goes well, they could have more properties around the country available in the future.