Nature as a Capitalist Commodity?
from The Land An Ecosystem at your Service Environmental strategists are redefining nature as a capitalist commodity. Sian Sullivan explains the latest thinking from those pushing for the global enclosure of local commons. What are “Ecosystem Services”? At first hearing, they sound like a firm of consultants who help you repair your ailing ecosystem. In […]
Massachusetts Farm Sold to Big Developers, Ends Up Forever Farmland
from the Boston Globe In West Bridgewater, farming in perpetuity By Rich Fahey Spring arrived late in West Bridgewater. Then came the heavy rains of April and May. The cold, wet soil has made planting more difficult, leading to some unusually long work days for Lynn and Pete Reading, owners of C&C Reading Farm. “We […]
Land Reform in Reverse: What Land Grabs are doing to Small Farms
from the Inter Press Service ‘Land reform in reverse’ – land grabs are increasing world hunger Stephen Leahy 3rd June 2014 Small farmers are losing out as the world’s farmland is becoming concentrated in ever fewer hands – and food security is suffering as a consequence. If we do nothing to reverse this trend, writes […]
Young Farmers Flock to the Good (Inexpensive) Land
from the Portland Press Herald In Maine, Old MacDonald gets younger Maine’s average farmer is 57, right in step with the national average of 58. But the 2012 Farm Census showed a steep gain statewide – 40 percent – in the number of farmers ages 25 to 34. Here is a county-by-county breakdown of the […]
A Common Tale
from bollier.org by David Bollier A Tragic Tale of Enclosure, Poetically Told Thu, 05/29/2014 – 14:39 What does enclosure feel like from the inside, as a lived experience, as a community is forced to abandon its “old ways” and adopt the new worldview of Progress and Profit? British author Jim Crace’s novel, Harvest, a finalist […]
Featured Resource: Vermont Law School’s Center for Agriculture and Food Systems
Heroic Endeavors: Vermont Law School’s Center for Agriculture and Food Systems (CAFS) by Leslie Hatfield | from EcoCentric The movement toward simpler food can be complicated. Entrepreneurs looking to start farms, farmers’ markets and food hubs quickly learn that when it comes to starting and running one – on top of the day-to-day work involved […]
What do you mean when you say . . .
Leasehold Estate: A leasehold estate is an ownership of a temporary right to hold land or property in which a lessee or a tenant holds rights of real property by some form of title from a lessor or landlord. Although a tenant does hold rights to real property, a leasehold estate is typically considered personal […]
Virginia Farm Needs Farmer, and a Plan
by Courtney Langley from the Virginia Gazette JAMES CITY – The county is looking for a good realtor to help assess, market and sell a 100-acre farm and a residential lot, both in the upper county. The request for proposals issued Thursday afternoon outlines interest in selling the Crawford house the county acquired last year, […]
First Nations Farmland Lost in Western Canada
From farmlandgrab.org A company that once billed itself as the largest corporate grain farm in the country is no longer growing crops in Western Canada. One Earth Farms, a subsidiary of Toronto-based Sprott Resource Corp., has sold its machinery and has terminated lease arrangements on hundreds of thousands of acres of cropland across the West. […]
Too Local?
The Poland and Polachek families have been stewards of the land in Loudoun County, VA for generations. In an article published by the Washington Business Journal, one farmer says the Poland Farm “sticks out like a sore thumb” in a sea of sub-divisions west of Washington, D.C. The article describes the farm as the hole […]