A recently established cooperative aims to purchase or acquire usage rights over land, and subsequently renting it out to to farmland to small-scale, short-chain organic farmers in Flanders. Its main goal is to provide professional farmers with an opportunity to gain firmer footing in today’s agricultural system through durable (long-term) usage agreements. In so doing, De Landgenoten hopes to inspire a fundamental shift in the way our land is managed and our agricultural system functions, and to contribute to long-term food security and food sovereignty in Flanders.
While anyone can buy shares, De Landgenoten focuses on local investors in a first phase because it recognizes the importance of the local community surrounding the project as those actors are amongst the most direct beneificiaries of the cooperative’s effects, and are most likely to engage in the cooperative in order to sustain the project.
Learn more at their Dutch language website www.delandgenoten.be or go to the English Translation.
