Woodland Community Land Trust: An Antidote to Extraction in Rural Appalachia
The Woodland Community Land Trust was incorporated in 1979, making it one of the oldest Community Land Trusts (CLTs) established in the United States. Located in the Clearfork Valley of northeastern Tennessee, a low-income Appalachian community dominated by extractive industry and concentrated land holding, economic, and political power, Woodland recently marked its 40th year in operation. Today, Woodland’s vision of community ownership still resounds in possibilities for Appalachian people and confronts the realities of peasant land dispossession throughout U.S. history and worldwide.
Thirty Years of Trailblazing a Farm Community at Temple-Wilton Community Farm
The story of Temple-Wilton Community Farm is one of community and commitment, persistence, and vision. As a community-based farm, Temple-Wilton provides support for its farmers and food security for its members. The farm exemplifies how Agrarian Trust might protect a working farm in perpetuity as a kind of ‘agrarian commons’ while upholding the values of access, affordability, and land security.
Creating an Agrarian Commons
How do we cooperatively own and steward land for food sovereignty, soil and ecosystem health, community benefit, service to the watershed, and more? Agrarian Trust’s proposed method is a new form (legal, cultural, and financial) of land ownership to support land access for the next generation of farmers, and we make the path by walking it.
Re-imagining Politics Through the Lens of the Commons
Why are the more wholesome alternative visions so scarce and scarcely believable?
Young Farmers in Minnesota get a hand from new land access bill
From the National Young Farmers Coalition: Saint Paul, Minnesota – On Tuesday evening, Governor Mark Dayton signed ten budget bills that included a first-of-its-kind beginning farmer tax credit. Authored by Rep. Nels Pierson (R-Rochester) and Sen. Mike Goggin (R-Redwing), the bill supports the transition of land to young and beginning farmers through a tax credit […]
Visions for a Farm Community: Thoughts for the Land Owner
Some thoughts from Faith Gilbert of the Letterbox Farm Collective for land owners and entrepreneurs seeking to partner with a farmer. This was written as a direct response to a particular farmer/landowner partnership idea involving agritourism activities; however the principles contained are broadly applicable. I want to offer a sincere welcome into the effort to […]
Local Food: Animated
Advocacy group Local Futures has just released this short video about how buying local food impacts local economies. The 2-minuted animated short highlights the essence of the problems of the global economy, and the multiple benefits of localization. Like it? They have a booklet too.
This May Day: Land, Food Workers and the Commons
Traditionally May 1st has been a day to recognize worker contributions and advocate for better rights. Today thousands, maybe millions will take to the street worldwide to take a stand for workers, just as workers did in 1886 in Chicago. Workers, particularly food and agricultural workers cannot be removed from the conversation of land access and […]
Access to Land in Europe
this video show what our counterparts in Europe are up to. also — learn how the European Parliament is weighing in on Land Access in this blog post.
Center for a Livable Future provides Policy and Community Solutions for Food System Health
The Center for a Livable Future at Johns Hopkins University released a series of policy recommendations for the new administration to bring the health of food systems and communities to the forefront of policy discussion. Agrarian Trust’s work all ultimately connects communities with the food being grown by their people from their soil, and according […]