Restoring Native Pollinator Habitats with the Agrarian Commons

Aug 15, 2022 • Agrarian Commons, Agrarian Trust, Sustainable Farming • By Noah Wurtz
In the past twenty years, habitat loss, pests, pathogens, a lack of genetic diversity among pollinator species, and the reckless use of pesticides has caused a drastic drop in the United State’s pollinator population. Between April 2020 and April 2021 alone, beekeepers report losing 45.1 percent of managed honey bee colonies. This loss of pollinators impedes the function of successful ecosystems and poses a direct threat to farmers’ ability to successfully grow food. According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), about “one mouthful in three in our diet directly or indirectly benefits from honey bee pollination.”

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What are the Rights of Nature?

Aug 09, 2022 • Agrarian Trust, Sustainable Farming • By Noah Wurtz
An ecologically responsible, regenerative approach to land management is at the center of Agrarian Trust’s effort to conserve and increase access to farmland across the United States. When a farmer signs on an Agrarian Commons lease, they agree to adhere to a high standard of ecological land management, and to respect specifically defined “Rights of Nature,” which are included explicitly in the lease. Listed here, the Rights of Nature in the Agrarian Commons lease include, but are not limited to:

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Enclosure: Old and New

Jul 25, 2022 • Agrarian Commons, Agrarian Trust, Land Access Stories • By Noah Wurtz
The Agrarian Commons is part of a long history of innovative commoning practices that have been formed in opposition to the commodification of land. Yet the dominant narrative in history textbooks frames the commons as a relic of the past, rendered obsolete by the “enclosures,” or widespread land grabbing that lasted from the 15th to 17th century. This narrative has been challenged by thinkers and activists who recognize that around the world, commoners are still actively fighting against efforts to grab their land and overturn traditional land rights. Agrarian Trust stands with these commoners as they seek to articulate a new, just vision of land tenure. 

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Commodity or Commons: Finance Capital and the Commodification of Land

Jul 13, 2022 • Agrarian Commons, Agrarian Trust, Food Systems and Security • By Noah Wurtz
The first major entity to begin investing in farmland as an asset was Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America (TIAA)—one of the largest pension firms in the United States, with $1,375 billion in assets. In 2007, the TIAA began purchasing enormous tracts of land. By 2017, the TIAA owned more than 1.9 million acres of farmland worldwide— an area significantly larger than the state of Maryland—including over 490,000 acres in Brazil alone. TIAA’s purchases in Brazil led to the consolidation of power in the hands of a small number of agribusinesses specializing in soy monoculture, driving farmers off their traditional land in record numbers, and leading to widespread deforestation, wildfires, and loss of biodiversity.

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Oasis and Community in Petersburg, Virginia

Jun 30, 2022 • Agrarian Commons, Food Systems and Security, Giving and Fundraisers, Land Justice and Equity • By Noah Wurtz
“What it means for our community... it means a sense of hope,” said Cherry. “It’s a light in a very dark time, not just for our city, but even for our country. And its potential for our youth, to know that something besides a place like Walmart exists here—that’s big. Something to be proud about, to say we have a community farm, something we’ve worked for—to have that kind of light in Petersburg.”

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Virginia, a Resettlement State

Jun 22, 2022 • Agrarian Commons, Food Systems and Security • By April Jones

America has always been a mix of cultural food traditions. We enjoy the freedom to explore taste and see the bounty of the many foodways, which allows us to be a part of the expansive American awareness. As cities become more culturally diverse, it is a chance for a renewed cultural fusion. 

The state of Virginia has a resettlement program that makes space for this cultural interchange, facilitating new boundaries of cultural storytelling.

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Press Release: Announcing New Land Acquisition Project for the Central Virginia Agrarian Commons

Jun 16, 2022 • Giving and Fundraisers, Press Releases and Announcements • By Kristina Villa
The Central Virginia Agrarian Commons (AC) is announcing its first land acquisition project. The Central VA AC needs to raise $145,000 through a fundraising campaign to acquire the 5.12-acre urban farm that sits right next door to an elementary school in Petersburg, Virginia. The Central VA AC is a collaboration between Agrarian Trust, Virginia Foodshed Capital, Virginia Cooperative Extension, Virginia Tech, the Petersburg Healthy Opportunities Project, Petersburg League of Urban Growers, and Sankofa Community Orchard to support urban food production and habitat diversity, and to counter high rates of food insecurity. 

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Juneteenth: A Celebration of Black Resistance

Jun 13, 2022 • Land Justice and Equity • By April Jones
Using land as a pathway for growth and upward mobility has always been an American tradition, but was only afforded to Black people after Juneteenth. New generations are now benefiting from the long legacy and history of the Black farmer. Juneteenth is an excellent chance for our country to celebrate Black resistance, resilience, and land practices.

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Healing the Land Through Community Collaboration in the Southwest Virginia Agrarian Commons

Jun 02, 2022 • Agrarian Commons, Sustainable Farming • By Noah Wurtz
As the campaign to raise $426,250 to purchase Lick Run Farm gains momentum, the Harvest Collective, a Virginia-based collaborative farming group, is already hard at work preparing Lick Run for its new place in the Southwest Virginia Agrarian Commons. Along with Cam Terry, the head farmer at Garden Variety Harvests, the collective has been mowing grass, laying tarps, and completing small construction projects around the land.

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Fighting for Domestic and Global Food Sovereignty

May 23, 2022 • Agrarian Trust, Food Systems and Security • By Noah Wurtz
The high cost of land, racial inequity and land grabbing that underpins agriculture in the United States is part of a global trend of expropriative land practice, founded upon centuries of corporate greed and colonial violence. Agrarian Trust is an active member of a global movement that seeks to heal from these destructive forces, while charting a new path forward—beginning with Indigenous knowledge, local control of the land and agroecological growing practices. Since its founding in 2010, the United States Food Sovereignty Alliance (USFSA) has worked “to end poverty, rebuild local food economies, and assert democratic control over the food system” as a partner organization of the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty.

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Cultivating Resiliency in Roanoke, Virginia

May 17, 2022 • Agrarian Commons, Food Systems and Security, Giving and Fundraisers, Land Access Stories, Land Justice and Equity • By Briana Olson
As a recipient of Roanoke City’s share of American Rescue Plan funding, LEAP is working to create a centralized food hub about a mile down the road from Lick Run Farm farm, where Cam plans to take his vision for growing food and building community to the next level. Once the funds are raised, the land will become the founding farm for the Southwest Virginia Agrarian Commons: a space where Cam can build soil, host workshops, and raise vegetables to be sold on-site as well as through LEAP’s new food hub.

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Equity & Justice Research Grant

May 15, 2022 • Agrarian Trust, Food Systems and Security, Land Justice and Equity, Press Releases and Announcements • By Katie Horner
The Gund Institute for Environment, based out of the University of Vermont (UVM), recently announced their inaugural Equity and Justice research grant, which supports projects that aim to address inequities and injustices underlying environmental crises. I was honored to receive one of these grants to support my collaboration with Agrarian Trust exploring how creative approaches improve equitable farmland access and sustainable on-farm practices. To date, land access policy initiatives in the United States have focused exclusively on expanding private property ownership. Recent research, however, indicates that such efforts may not fully address the systemic and structural barriers to equitable farmland access. 

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The Diggers Today: Enclosure, Manure, and Resistance

May 13, 2022 • Agrarian Trust, Land Access Stories • By Noah Wurtz
Such historical examples of commoning practices and resistance to land enclosures not only provide ample opportunity to learn from past struggles, but also serve as proof that, rather than being a static relic of the past, the commons are continuously defended and transformed in the struggle against the exploitative and dehumanizing forces of enclosure. Agrarian Trust and similar grassroots organizations are part of this long lineage of commoners fighting for a more equitable and ecologically oriented relationship with the land. Over three hundred years before the founding of Agrarian Trust, Gerard Winstanley and the Diggers championed a compelling alternative to the early capitalism of the seventeenth century. Their platform centered on the democratic control of land and the restorative power of a simple but often overlooked fertilizing agent—manure.

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Explore the Farm and Fundraise with Frankie the Cat

May 09, 2022 • Agrarian Commons, Giving and Fundraisers • By Noah Wurtz
The authors of Frankie Explores the Farm, Courtney Taylor and Harmony Marquardt, are donating the proceeds from their new book to the fundraising campaign for Southwest Virginia Agrarian Commons. By purchasing a copy on Agrarian Trust’s website, you can contribute to Southwest Virginia Agrarian Common’s effort to raise more than $250,000 to purchase Lick Run Farm and ensure that the farm’s 3.5 acres remain accessible and productive.

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The International Land Coalition Commits to New Strategy Centered on Restoring Land Rights to Dispossessed Communities

May 07, 2022 • Land Access Strategies, Land Justice and Equity • By Noah Wurtz
The International Land Coalition has released a new strategy that centers on securing land rights for “women, youth, family and peasant farmers, indigenous peoples, pastoralists, forest dwellers, fisher folk, afro‑descendants and local communities.” The Agrarian Trust is a member of the International Land Coalition (ILC), a global coalition of over 300 members dedicated to the advancement of people-centered land governance.

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Redlining’s Legacy: Disinvestment in Black Communities in Virginia

Apr 18, 2022 • Food Systems and Security, Land Justice and Equity, Uncategorized • By April Jones
Redlining was a red mark against these robust neighborhoods, meaning that they could not connect to federal funding for home loans. Race was the defining factor in redlining and prevented these communities from gaining full access to the federal support that was needed and that they paid into through the federal tax system. 

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Creating Land Access & Tenure for Black Farmers in Virginia

Mar 28, 2022 • Agrarian Commons, Land Justice and Equity • By Kristina Villa
While securing land tenure is a challenge facing farmers of every race in this country, Agrarian Trust knows that land access is a greater barrier for farmers of color, and is centering the work of making affordable land security available to BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) farmers. More than 98% of farmland in the U.S. is owned by white people while more than 70% of the farmworkers who seed, cultivate, weed, and harvest the crops that feed us are people of color. This gross injustice needs to change.

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Black-led Modest Family Solutions has been selected as the long-term leaseholder and steward for the Puget Sound Agrarian Commons farmland

Feb 21, 2022 • Agrarian Commons, Land Justice and Equity, Press Releases and Announcements • By Kristina Villa
The Puget Sound Agrarian Commons (AC) has chosen Adasha Turner, founder and director of Modest Family Solutions, as the long-term leaseholding steward of the land gift that started the Puget Sound Agrarian Commons and the Agrarian Commons movement.

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Foodlands Cooperative of British Columbia

Sep 27, 2021 • Commons Alliance • By Taylor Plett
If you drive east from Vancouver for about an hour and a half on a Saturday morning, you can join the group of city dwellers, expats, artists and others gathering for the weekend harvest at Abundance Community Farm. “We call it the farmily,” chuckled Amir Niroumand. He purchased the land for Abundance in 2016 as a place for intentional community and collective farming. It was a risky investment – an experiment in communal responsibility – and it worked. Now, Niroumand is thinking about the future.

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The Fault in Our Farming

Sep 23, 2020 • Food Systems and Security, Sustainable Farming • By Frankie Wallace
Humanity can no longer afford to ignore the myriad ways in which monoculture is unsustainable and dangerous. Widespread environmental sustainability is virtually impossible under the monoculture farming model. It seems as though we must look to the farmers and stewards of the past to protect public health into the foreseeable future.

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New Report: “Driving Dispossession: The Global Push to “Unlock the Economic Potential of Land”

Jul 14, 2020 • Commons Alliance • By Agrarian Trust
driving disposessionDriving Dispossession: The Global Push to “Unlock the Economic Potential of Land,” sounds the alarm on the unprecedented wave of privatization of natural resources that is underway around the world. Through six case studies—Ukraine, Zambia, Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka, and Brazil—the report details the myriad ways by which governments—willingly or under the pressure of financial institutions and Western donor agencies—are putting more land into so-called “productive use” in the name of development.

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Vernon Family Farm: Joining the New Hampshire Agrarian Commons

May 13, 2020 • Agrarian Commons, Press Releases and Announcements • By Darby Weaver
Situated on 33 acres in Newfields, NH, Vernon Family Farm is a pastured poultry operation focused on regenerating soils, community, and connections to food. The chickens are raised with non-GMO grains, are USDA certified, Halal inspected, air chilled, and every part of the animal is processed and used. Along with a value added product line named “Wicked Chicken” which includes a rotisserie chicken, soup, and pot pie, the farm offers an incredible selection of cuts and preparations for their customers such as chicken sausage, ground, offal, skins, and broths. In addition to their meat offerings, Vernon Family Farm also sells rainbow eggs from their pasture raised hens and a variety of farm products from Brookford Farm and other local NH farms.

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The 100 Year History of the San Pedro Commons

Sep 30, 2019 • Agrarian Commons, Commons Alliance, Land Access Stories, Land Access Strategies, Land Justice and Equity • By Agrarian Trust
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.

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Land in Common: A Bold and Patient Model for Agrarian Reform in Maine

Sep 30, 2019 • Agrarian Commons, Commons Alliance, Land Access Strategies • By Eliza Spellman Taylor
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.”

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Truthout: A Green New Deal Must Prioritize Regenerative Agriculture

May 01, 2019 • Land Access Strategies, Sustainable Farming • By Agrarian Trust
"Agrarian Trust, a nonprofit committed to supporting land access for the next generation of farmers, is experimenting with community-controlled land commons to collectively and democratically own the land, while giving 99-year leases to regenerative farmers. This model prioritizes broader community involvement and investment in local farms, while giving farmers long-term land security and equity interests so that they can fully commit to restoring the land over many decades."

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Woodland Community Land Trust: An Antidote to Extraction in Rural Appalachia

Apr 18, 2019 • Commons Alliance, Land Access Strategies, Land Justice and Equity • By Eliza Spellman Taylor
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.

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FaithLands Pilot Project in North Carolina Welcomes Our New Coordinator, Josie Walker

Apr 18, 2019 • Faithlands, Land Access Strategies • By Agrarian Trust
We’re thrilled to welcome Josie Walker to our team as our Eastern North Carolina Project Coordinator for FaithLands, a coalition-led initiative that supports faith communities in making lands available for sustainable, agroecological farming, especially to those in society marginalized by virtue of class, race, gender, economic status, and other factors.

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Earthseed Land Collective: Farmers of Color Create Space for Collective Living & Liberation on the Land

Mar 06, 2019 • Land Access Stories, Land Access Strategies, Land Justice and Equity • By Agrarian Trust
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...

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Envisioning Racial Equity in Agriculture: A Groundwater Approach to Our Food System

Feb 28, 2019 • Food Systems and Security, Land Justice and Equity • By Agrarian Trust
In the United States today, 98% of farmland is owned by white people. That raises some critical questions. Namely, how can we in the land trust community—historically white-led and governed—achieve racial equity and social justice in our work for land access for the next generation of farmers? In our latest post, we reflect on how the Racial Equity Institute's "Groundwater Approach" provides a powerful framework for understanding racial inequity and creating systemic change.

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New Hampshire’s First Affordable Whole Farm: Keeping Wingate Farm in the Family, Permanently Conserved, and Affordable for Future Farmers

Jan 23, 2019 • Land Access Stories • By Eliza Spellman Taylor
The story of Wingate Farm is firmly grounded in the rich and complex dynamics of multi-generational family farming, in which everyone must come together to plan the future of the family’s farm. Through their shared commitment and use of innovative tools to promote farmland affordability, the farmers at Wingate have ensured that the farm will remain accessible to future generations.

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Looking Back to Look Forward: Expanding the Toolbox to Create Equitable, Secure & Affordable Access to Land

Dec 18, 2018 • Agrarian Trust, Land Access Strategies, Land Justice and Equity • By Jamie Pottern
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?

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Building an Agrarian Commons: Learning from Farmers & Community Organizers

Nov 29, 2018 • Agrarian Commons, Land Access Stories • By Eliza Spellman Taylor
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.

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Where We’ll Will Be This Fall & Winter 2018: Agrarian Trust Newsletter

Nov 05, 2018 • Agrarian Trust, Land Justice and Equity • By Agrarian Trust
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...

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Land Access Strategy: One Farmer and 8,000 Landlords at Fordhall Farm

Nov 02, 2018 • Land Access Strategies • By Agrarian Trust
Fordhall Farm shows how enterprising young farmers can engage with the community, mutualise the land and put it into trusteeship using the Industrial and Provident Society structure, raise the purchase capital from members and balance community access rights with farming needs. Ben and Charlotte Hollins were given a Schumacher Award in October 2006.

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Land Access Strategy: The National Trust of England

Nov 01, 2018 • Land Access Strategies • By Agrarian Trust
The National Trust of England is the country’s largest owner of farmland. Agricultural land is one aspect of the organization’s conservation goals. Established in the late 1800s, with a vision for preserving the nation’s heritage and open spaces, the charity organization has continued to uphold the value of their founders. Originally established as an Association not-for-profit in 1884, the trust was soon after given more solidity through various acts of British Parliament. The organization remains independent of government and relies on grants, donors and other sources of income, rather than direct government subsidy. Some of the funds come from admission to and products from the trusts Home Farm as well as other preserved historic estates.

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Land Access Strategy: Black U.S. Farmers Employ Numerous Strategies to Maintain Land Ownership and Farm Operating Independence

Nov 01, 2018 • Land Access Strategies • By Agrarian Trust
Black farmers have developed countless creative and enduring responses to the challenges of discrimination and disinvestment in US agriculture. Far too many of the initiatives led by Black farmers in the past did not thrive due in part to a hostile social and political climate that devalued and discouraged their efforts. The continued work of organizations such as the Federation of Southern Cooperatives helps ensure that the innovative approaches to land ownership and agricultural production developed by Black farmers will be recognized and documented, as well as carried forward by future generations. We still have much to learn from the history of Black farmers in America.

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Spirit of Sustainable Agriculture (Harvard Conference)

Nov 01, 2018 • Land Access Strategies • By Agrarian Trust
Concepts such as agroecology, biodynamics, permaculture, food miles, food deserts, food justice, and local food have all proliferated in both popular and scholarly venues over the past ten to fifteen years. Such a sustainable agriculture gestalt is vibrant and worthy of more sustained discussion and critical attention. In this spirit, “The Spirit of Sustainable Agriculture” aims to bring together farmers, religious and spiritual leaders, and academics, respectively, to join in a robust and stimulating discussion about the spirit of sustainable agriculture, delineating its past, celebrating and investigating its present, and theorizing its future.

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Land and Water: A Long Term Perspective

Nov 01, 2018 • Agrarian Commons, Food Systems and Security, Land Justice and Equity • By Agrarian Trust
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.

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Land Access Strategy: Women Caring for the Land Program

Oct 29, 2018 • Land Access Strategies • By Agrarian Trust
About 50% of Midwestern landowners in Iowa are women. Many of these women are non-operator farm-owners whose spouses have passed away. The Women, Food and Agriculture Network (WFAN) has been serving these Midwestern women farmers and farmland owners since their founding as a non-profit project in 1997. The network was created to provide information, networking and leadership development opportunities to women working in sustainable agriculture and food systems development.

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Thirty Years of Trailblazing a Farm Community at Temple-Wilton Community Farm

Oct 25, 2018 • Agrarian Commons, Commons Alliance, Food Systems and Security, Land Access Stories, Land Access Strategies, Sustainable Farming • By Eliza Spellman Taylor
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.

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