Agrarian Investments in New England
Making a profit off of real estate investment is no new thing, even when it comes to farmland. Land grabs make the land valuable without valuing the land. There are some investment groups, though, that aim to invest in land sustainably. One such group is The Entrepreneur Agrarian Fund (EAF), a private equity fund establishing […]
Women Taking Over the Land
The fate of farm and ranchland transferred into the hands of the next generation is not always a continuance of the agricultural legacy. Deep in the heart of Texas, women farmers may change that fate. Read this Texas Tribune story about women farmers taking over the land.
Conserving Ranches in California
California has seen development threaten agricultural lands for decades. Organizations in the Golden State, like the California Rangeland Trust, are working to save farms and ranches for working agriculture. California Rangeland Trust has preserved over 275,000 acres of privately owned ranches since 1998. In 2012, they helped facilitate a conservation easement on Goodwin Ranch, putting […]
Boots to Fill
I was working the Union Square Greenmarket a couple of weeks ago, when a woman, probably in her late twenties said she wanted to be a farmer. Her husband was enmeshed in big business and they wanted out. She wanted to know how to go about it, and since we were there from Vermont, she […]
A Brief History of How We Lost the Commons
In an article published earlier this year by Guernica Magazine, Peter Barnes investigates how humankind lost “The Commons”, the land that once belonged to everyone. He follows a quick lineage from hunter-gatherers to the culture of Ancient Rome, and onward into the present. His closing argument reiterates the mission of Agrarian Trust: “The world today […]
LandFund: What they’re doing with $7 million
An acquisition of $7 million worth of farmland by the Nashville-based closed-end private equity firm LandFund is a stark recent example of why those concerned with responsible stewardship of the land need to act soon to preserve our agricultural lands. An article in The Tennessean breaks down the reasons why investing in farmland is so […]
Land is the New Gold
The three year-old Land Access Project (LAP), an initiative of New England-based Land for Good, has made countless contributions to defining and solving issues around farmland access. Their report on farmland investment directly addresses the financial side of farmland for the next generation. The report, Farmland Investors: An Exploration for New England and Beyond, presents […]
Clean Ohio Fund: Farmland Preservation in the Buckeye State
In the many middle states that keep the heart of agriculture beating in our country, agricultural protection programs are generally more scarce than in the northeast and western states, where development has long threatened a vibrant farm economy. The Clean Ohio Agricultural Easement Purchase Program (AEPP) purchases agricultural easements from landowners who volunteer to keep […]
The New American Farmer
A research paper from the Transnational Institute draws on ethnographic research conducted in the Central Coast of California and the Northern Neck of Virginia, where a significant number of Mexican farmworkers are in the process of transitioning to small-scale family-run farm owner/operators, despite race and ethnicity based discrimination. Although they attempt to succeed as small-scale, […]
Agriculture Advocates Use Theatre to Protest Development in California
A group of vegetables were bulldozed inside an East Bay location of Sprouts Farmers Market–a grocery store chain with 160 locations throughout the Southwest and Western United States. Sprouts Farmers Market recently entered a development contract with the University of California Berkeley to develop what is currently a piece of agricultural land into a new […]