The New American Farmer
A research paper from the Transnational Institute draws on ethnographic research conducted in the Central Coast of California and the Northern Neck of Virginia, where a significant number of Mexican farmworkers are in the process of transitioning to small-scale family-run farm owner/operators, despite race and ethnicity based discrimination. Although they attempt to succeed as small-scale, […]
Agriculture Advocates Use Theatre to Protest Development in California
A group of vegetables were bulldozed inside an East Bay location of Sprouts Farmers Market–a grocery store chain with 160 locations throughout the Southwest and Western United States. Sprouts Farmers Market recently entered a development contract with the University of California Berkeley to develop what is currently a piece of agricultural land into a new […]
All the News That’s Fit to Print: New York Times Op-Ed Piece Advocates for Farmers
A recent op-ed piece in the New York Times winds through the hills of upstate New York looking for a solution to keeping agricultural land in the hands of farmers. “In the next 20 years, 70 percent of the nation’s farmland will change hands.Farmers do not live forever, and most farm kids do not choose […]
Land Conservation Efforts Need Re-evaluation
The National Young Farmers Coalition released a report yesterday that reveals how current farmland conservation practices are failing working farmers. Farmland Conservation 2.0: How Land Trusts Can Protect America’s Working Farms surveyed 200 land trust leaders from across the United States. The report discovered that one-quarter of land trusts have seen protected farmland move out of […]
Land and Capital: Challenges for the Young Farmer
This story about young farmers in Illinois points to the challenges of land and capital as the biggest inhibitors. An excerpt from the article, first published by the Bloomington Pantagraph. “Capital is tight across the board, and it’s not just for our new farmers, but it impacts them as well,” Brockman said. Olson’s father and uncle […]
Combining Assets and Trust: Waterpenny Farm
This story starts in 1998 when we were both 25 years old and ready to start our own organic vegetable farm. We’d both worked for Chip and Susan Planck of Wheatland Vegetable Farms in northernmost Virginia for a number of years. During our time there we gained the desire to become farmers, as well as […]
New Report Shows Role for Investors in Saving Farmland
Meeting the farmland access challenge in New England requires creative approaches and new partners. A just-released report from the Land Access Project (LAP) investigates the potential role investors can play in helping farmers get onto farmland in our region. Farmland Investors: An Exploration for New England and Beyond takes a look at several values-based farmland […]
Raising Dough: New Book Kneads Into Financing Sustainable Businesses
A new book written by Elizabeth Ü and published by Chelsea Green uncovers financing options for sustainable food businesses. Raising Dough provides insights into the world of finance, including descriptions of the various capital options available (including traditional debt and equity, government grant and loan programs, cutting-edge social finance options such as crowdfunding, and community-based […]
Giving Voice to the Soil
The methods we use to gain attention for agricultural land access must be as diverse as the land we aim to preserve. Doug Nopar, a farmer and program organizer for the Land Stewardship Project, authored a creative dramatization about land gifting called “Look Who’s Knockin.’ The play gives life to the ethics and motives behind […]
Landless Farmers in South America Win Land Rights
After 20 years of struggle and waiting, the families camped out in the municipality of Prado (in extreme south of Brazil’s Bahia state) finally received legal title to their land. The roughly 5,025 acres of farmland has the capacity to settle about 280 families. For members of the Landless Workers Movement (MST), the Rosa Prado […]