The Local Motive
Understanding our food system has grown increasingly difficult in today’s globalized world. Everything we could ever want to eat is at our fingertips, regardless of season or location, yet this accessibility is deceiving. Vermont PBS has created a six part series called The Local Motive which looks at Vermont’s local food system through various lenses including: production, processing, distribution, farm to […]
NSAC Ensures Better Loan Access for Farmers through Federal Budget “Anomaly”
The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) has won a victory in a trying time in the US Federal Government. Without a comprehensive budget for fiscal year 2017 passed, most funding is stagnated in the continuing resolutions (CRs) the congress passes (temporary budget extensions) to keep the government open until a new budget can be passed […]
EU Conference seeks to crack Land Access Question (LIVE STREAM 12/7)
Land Access is a global problem. Across the globe, producers young and old, land owners, governments and non-profits are seeking the solutions to the ever pressing question: how can we guarantee land to the next generation of farmers? The ECVC, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Greens/EFA Group of the European Parliament is putting […]
Farmland Affordability through Community Land Contribution
In Martin Adams’s new book Land: A New Paradigm for a Thriving World the author tackles the questions about land’s use and values through a plethora of lenses. In chapter 13, Adams delves into the impact of sustainable farming and farm access. Echoing Agrarian Trusts beliefs in land stewardship and the need for a affordable farmland […]
Reinventing the Commons: Social Ecosystems for Local Stewardship & Planetary Survival
Come meet Emma Hempstead, Agrarian Trust’s Agrarian Lawyers Network Shepherd in person at this event and learn more about commons in the modern era! Our friends at the Dynamics Ecological Design are putting on a workshop to answer the question: How can we consciously, creatively, and practically adapt and reintegrate practices and patterns of commoning into our modern cultural […]
Investing in Our Future: Understanding the Challenges and Benefits of Sustainable Farming
A recent report written by the Conservation Finance Network news team at Yale Center for Business and the Environment investigates whether sustainable farmland investments bring about social, economic and environmental returns. The findings of the study reveal current challenges and risks, successful models currently in place and suggested next steps to heighten returns from sustainable farmland investment. Read an expanded […]
Help Make Our Story Hill a Farm for Good
The Organization for Refugee & Immagrint Success (ORIS) has worked since 2012 to build a program for resettled refugee farmers to continue their agricultural careers on American soil. The group has been farming land in New Hampshire for almost 5 years and now, with collaboration from the Russell Foundation, has the opportunity to purchase the 57 […]
New structure for OAO could mean more access for underserved farmers
In an announcement from the USDA this past week, the promise of the Office of Advocacy and Outreach (OAO) has come closer to fruition. The OAO was created by the 2008 Farm Bill to give voice and opportunity to beginning, minority and underserved farmers. Most notably, OAO administers the USDA’s Outreach and Assistance for Socially Disadvantaged […]
Black Agrarianism: Resistance
Food First continues to break down walls in their Dismantling Racism in the Food System series in their newest piece, Black Agrarianism: Resistance. The piece serves as a study of the historical context of black farming, how slavery and freedom influenced the Black Agrarian Liberation Movements of the 1960’s and 70’s, and the declaration of sovereignty of […]
How Agrarian Trust is Fighting for Future Generations
Land access is one of the greatest barriers to entry that farmers today are facing. Arable land is decreasing, while land prices are increasing. Severine von Tscharner Fleming, the Board President of Agrarian Trust, talks to Rural America – In These Times about issues of land transfer and access, and how Agrarian Trust is working to […]