Cultivating Resiliency in Roanoke, Virginia
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.
The Diggers Today: Enclosure, Manure, and Resistance
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.
A Community Land Trust Seeds the New Hampshire Agrarian Commons
In June 2021, the first farm was transferred into the New Hampshire Agrarian Commons. The 63 acres of farmland were a gift: the Monadnock Community Land Trust (MCLT) donated the land to the Agrarian Commons so that it could continue to be protected for farming.
Changemaker Profile: Jillian Hishaw and Systemic Land Theft
A reflection from author, attorney, and landowner advocate Jillian Hishaw as she discusses her new book, Systematic Land Theft.
Vermont Agrarian Commons – A New Model of Community Land Partnership for Regenerative Farms
Corie Pierce of Bread and Butter Farm on why the Agrarian Commons offers a strong and vibrant future for the farm.
Sweet Land: The Story of a Collaborative Farming Model that Saved Two Dairies
This is the story of the revival of two dairy farms as a result of regenerative farming practices, savvy marketing, and an openness to sharing land and cows. It’s written […]
The 100 Year History of the San Pedro Commons
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.
Video: Sustainable Farming & Food Sovereignty in Cuba
“Cuba is a great example of how organic farming could supersede conventional agriculture.” —Food First’s Madaly Alcala
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…
New Hampshire’s First Affordable Whole Farm: Keeping Wingate Farm in the Family, Permanently Conserved, and Affordable for Future Farmers
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.