This Land Is Your Land
June 16th-23rd is #RefugeeWeek and June is Immigrant Heritage Month #CelebrateImmigrants by Vanessa García Polanco Imagine arriving in a new country as a refugee after spending years in a refugee camp in another country as an asylum seeker and then being given three months to achieve “self-sufficiency” in your new host country. Your hands and […]
Opportunities for the Next Generation of Farmers on the Land
Editor’s Note: This article is the second in a new series from Agrarian Trust and our contributors exploring the human side of land transition. Stay tuned for monthly posts from diverse voices, including farmers of all ages and backgrounds. by Darby Weaver Starting Seeds Starting seeds in early Spring has become a rhythm for me. Just […]
Los Herederos de la Tierra, The Heirs of The Land
By Vanessa García Polanco “The land should always be there, you should always own some. Money goes away and you can spend it really fast. I don’t like to sell or give away things I inherited.” – Alicia Alba, my grandmother As I set foot in the lands that belong to my grandmother that she […]
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.
Earthseed Land Collective: Farmers of Color Create Space for Collective Living & Liberation on the Land
The Earthseed Land Collective was formally established in 2012 by a group of black and brown farmers and social justice organizers. All in their 30s and early 40s at the time of its founding, the group currently includes seven founding members. Over the past decade, they have sought to establish a stable land base for their families and an equally grounded, self-sustaining, and welcoming hub for community building, particularly among farmers of color and food justice advocates…
Looking Back to Look Forward: Expanding the Toolbox to Create Equitable, Secure & Affordable Access to Land
That these farms are going to change hands is inevitable; that the next generation of farmers who so desperately want to farm them cannot afford to buy them is a stark reality. How can land trusts help turn the tide against the mounting barriers faced by our nation’s farmers?
Where We’ll Will Be This Fall & Winter 2018: Agrarian Trust Newsletter
We hope you’ve been enjoying the changing of the seasons. We’re looking forward to the crackle of leaves and harvests of autumn—and to the many upcoming events where we’ll have the opportunity to meet and share more on our work to create a Agrarian Commons. As we travel the land, meeting with farmers and communities, we’ve been sharing our vision and documenting successful stories that inform our approach to land stewardship and equity…
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.
Building Power: Advancing a People’s Agenda for Food Sovereignty & Climate Justice
What does an equitable food system look like in world that values corporate profits over people, health, and the environment? What would a grassroots movement of people look like—a movement large enough to fight those interests and win? What does it look like for a national food movement to “build power”? These are just some of the larger questions that arose at the US Food Sovereignty Alliance (USFSA)’s Northeast Regional Assembly…
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.