We recently had an opportunity to connect with Cam Terry, a farmer in Roanoke, Virginia who is currently raising funds with Agrarian Trust and Central Virginia Agrarian Commons to acquire a parcel of land in central Roanoke. We spoke about Okra Fest, a yearly arts festival that Cam hosts on
We’re thrilled to announce that LaShauna Austria and Jean Theron Willoughby have joined Agrarian Trust’s team as Interim Co-Directors.
Fran Miller loves to grow garlic. She plants it every year, pressing the cloves into the earth at the end of fall, gathering the scapes in early summer, and curing the bulbs through the early fall.
The funding allocated to Agrarian Trust and its partners will go towards providing technical assistance and securing land for farmers who are Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) in Texas, Nebraska, New York, and Tennessee.
According to the 2022 survey by National Young Farmers Coalition, 83 percent of new farmers report that “one of their farm’s primary purposes for existing is engaging in conservation or regeneration.”
It seems obvious that we live on a finite planet, with finite space, and finite resources. Then why isn’t it treated as such?
Agrarian Commons farmers Cam Terry, Duron Chavis, and Tyrone Cherry III joined the National Family Farm Coalition’s (NFFC) first national fly-in in three years. A progressive policy organization committed to fighting corporate control of agriculture, NFFC gathered farmers, fisherfolk, and nonprofit leaders to lobby their congressional representatives. Our shared objective was to create a more equitable farm system for all.
Over the course of the podcast’s eight episode first season, Commons Groundswell will cover a wide range of themes, from decommodifying the land through the Agrarian Commons to rebuilding land ownership for Black farmers, and the importance of rekindling spiritual connection with the land. Listen to leading voices in the fight for equitable land access, like Dr. Shakara Tyler of Detroit Black Farmer Land Fund, and Leah Penniman of Soul Fire farm as they share their perspectives, and expand and explore what it means to live on the land.
A growing body of evidence, including a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, supports Regenerate International’s claim. Regenerative agriculture practices, many of which are used by Agrarian Commons farmers, have the potential to remove carbon from the atmosphere and greatly mitigate the effects of climate change.
The Bhoodan movement serves as an example of the limitations of land-gifting, as well as its immense potential. On the one hand, land donations should be considered as one part of what should be a multifaceted approach, and cannot fully replace a concerted effort to influence policy and decentralize land holdings and power dynamics. On the other hand, the role of land donors should not be underestimated. Bhave and the Bhoodan movement showed that landowners are willing to make serious sacrifices in the name of a deeply moral cause.
