Guest Post: Idaho is Losing Farmland Fast
Could Sustainable Agriculture Save It? As farmland in Idaho begins to disappear in favor of large agricultural businesses and home construction projects, sustainable agriculture is more necessary than ever. Forward-thinking researchers and farmers are experimenting with growing new types of crops in the region. Idaho-based researchers are investigating the viability of almond growth and cultivation […]
Struggles and Strategies of the Farmland Trust Movement Across Europe
In September, I participated in a convening on land access alongside a group of 90 participants from 16 European countries in Chaussy, France and presented on our local Agrarian Commons model. The event was facilitated by Access to Land, a grassroots network of organizations that secures land for agroecological farming. Participants from across Europe attended the […]
A Landscape in Transition
Frost and early snow over the last month and the last of the brown and yellow leaves are subtly transforming the scene in these Northern Vermont hills. This time of year finds my hands in cover crop seed, filling buckets and casting out the diverse blends like rains over prepared land. This is the first year […]
Sweet Land: The Story of a Collaborative Farming Model that Saved Two Dairies
This is the story of the revival of two dairy farms as a result of regenerative farming practices, savvy marketing, and an openness to sharing land and cows. It’s written from a series of conversations at a farmer’s market in Roanoke, Virginia, where the author and Sweet Land farmers are neighbor-vendors. Rob and Erin Lisenby […]
The 100 Year History of the San Pedro Commons
2018 marked the hundred-year anniversary of the privatization of the San Pedro Land grant, the place where I was born and still call home. It is an arid piece of high desert, covered in piñon and juniper, located in the eastern and northern foothills of the Sandia Mountains in central New Mexico. It was an anniversary no one marked publicly, not even the heirs to the land still living in San Antonito, the village just down the road. It is part of a story lost, for the most part, to so-called progress.
Land in Common: A Bold and Patient Model for Agrarian Reform in Maine
Land in Common is a Community Land Trust in Maine, born out of a community-focused, land justice centered living space that has evolved over the past twenty years. Officially founded in 2008, Land in Common is a nonprofit organization that removes land from the commodity market and places it into a member-run trust where it can be stewarded by residents. Its goal is to create “a multi-generational land base for sustainable livelihoods that supports communities working for just, cooperative, and resilient futures.”
Portraits of the Agrarian Trust Collective: #Inktober
This October, Agrarian Trust is spotlighting the farmers and ranchers who put food on our plates, the advocates who support equitable land tenure and community commons based ownership, and the collaborations that are creating the local Agrarian Commons across the U.S.
New Agrarian Commons Poster: Many Communities, One Trust
We commissioned and presented a new poster to visually explain how we’ve mapped out the structure of an agrarian commons and engaged in discussions with a number of legacy farmers who expressed interest. Check out our new Agrarian Commons poster (version 1.0) and let us know what you think!
Building an Agrarian Commons: Learning from Farmers & Community Organizers
Agrarian Trust staff had the pleasure of meeting with farmers, landowners, and organizers at Hawthorne Valley Farm in Ghent, NY and The Watershed Center in Millerton, NY in late October. We learned a lot from our colleagues in the Hudson Valley and reflected on the economic and social aspects of our beginning agrarian commons work. Above all, it was an honor to spend time with organizations and people engaged in such compelling and inspiring place-based work with larger justice implications.
Land and Water: A Long Term Perspective
In the context of global warming, issues of access to land and water have been revived at a moment of disappearing land, mass migration, foreclosures, evictions, rent hikes, land grabs, and the privatization of clean water. We believe that now is a vital moment for academics and activists to enter a shared conversation about control and access to land and water, naming the most formidable challenges, the utopian models, and the important historical analogues for our present moment.