Land access is one of three focus areas that will frame our policy, education, networking and collaboration activities in 2022, offering multiple points of intersection for funders across our network.
Finding secure access to land is the number one barrier preventing a generation of farmers from entering the field. The historical roots of unequal land access are entrenched in the culture of private land ownership and various forms of enforced labor and enslavement practiced by European settlers in America. Today in the U.S. 98% of farmland is owned by white people and 95% of farmers are white, the deliberate result of centuries of policies, laws, and violence that have dispossessed Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color (BIPOC) of land and labor, while the contributions of these communities to building the country’s agricultural wealth have gone uncompensated and unacknowledged.
These policies, along with market shifts and the increasing economic pressure of coping with extreme weather due to climate change, have favored the largest of landowners and farming enterprises, leading to the disappearance of small and mid-sized farms owned by farmers of all races. The trend toward consolidation means that 41% of farmland is now operated by just over 7% of the country’s farms; 30% of farmland is owned by non-farmers; 40% of farmland is leased; and nearly 45% of landlords have never farmed.
Food sovereignty for Tribal nations and Indigenous communities, food justice for communities of color and low-income Americans, the ability of the next generation of farmers and farmers of color to make a living on the land and keep agricultural lands in production using sustainable and regenerative farming methods, all are contingent on the expansion of land access beyond the current landholding class of Americans.
Philanthropy can directly fund programs that help diverse farmers – BIPOC, new and beginning, young, women – purchase and retain ownership of farmland through CDFIs and other lending and investment vehicles. Flexible grant funds can support tools and technical assistance for farm viability in both rural and urban environments; the establishment and sustainability of cooperative and other alternative models of land ownership/stewardship; support for equitable land transfer and succession planning; and regional and local food system infrastructure that provides markets for farmers of diverse backgrounds and scales.
Nonprofits working to change federal agricultural and tax policies to level the playing field for smaller farms, socially disadvantaged farmers and farmers proactively employing climate-resilient stewardship techniques need financial support for their advocacy and lobbying efforts to effect policy change. Philanthropy can also support groups working to enact state and local policies such as those that prevent the loss of heirs property and provide secure long-term access to land for urban farming; advocacy for government policies that rematriate land and/or provide reparations for land theft; and policies that enable and incentivize cooperative forms of land ownership.
Land Policy: Towards a More Equitable Farming Future – National Young Farmers Coalition
American Indian History Timeline – Indian Land Tenure Foundation
Land Grab Universities – High Country News
The Great Land Robbery – The Atlantic
Who Really Owns American Farmland – The Counter
RECORDING: Land Utilization and Heir(s) Property – USDA/Southern Rural Development Center 2020 workshop on Building Capacity for Socially Disadvantaged Farmers and Ranchers
Heirs Property – Farmland Access Legal Toolkit, Center for Agriculture & Food Systems
Partition of Heirs Property Act State Tracker – Uniform Law Commission
Farms for the Future: 20 Organizations Protecting Farmland – Food Tank
This list is provided for information only; listing here does not imply an endorsement by SAFSF. Please do your due diligence as you would for any other contribution. Complete this submission form to add an organization that should be included here (self-reporting is encouraged).
National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition
Registration for these calls is limited to current SAFSF members only. Responding to the needs expressed by our membership, SAFSF will host a strategy call series over the next month […]
Many funders, investors, and PSOs have reached out to SAFSF in the past two months for help in understanding the shocking COVID-19-related food and agriculture headlines and how they as […]
A pastor, fisherman, and ocean farmer share “real stories” of what it takes to create a just food system, proving that burgeoning markets, environmental stewardship, and supporting communities can coexist. […]
A pastor, fisherman, and ocean farmer share “real stories” of what it takes to create a just food system, proving that burgeoning markets, environmental stewardship, and supporting communities can coexist. […]
Many funders, investors, and PSOs have reached out to SAFSF in the past two months for help in understanding the shocking COVID-19-related food and agriculture headlines and how they as […]
Registration for these calls is limited to current SAFSF members only. Responding to the needs expressed by our membership, SAFSF will host a strategy call series over the next month […]
Presented by LIFT EconomyCo-sponsored by Resource Generation & SAFSFJoin LIFT Economy and the Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems Funders on a webinar discussing innovative and diverse financing mechanisms for shared […]
On this tour, we will learn about a variety of programs and organizations that are supporting new and beginning production farmers in Pittsburgh and the surrounding region. Although similar programs […]
Washington, DCMonday, April 29 — Tuesday, April 30Funders-Only Event Registration closed.This past December, Congress finalized the 2018 farm bill––but that was only the first half of the process! Now begins […]
The food movement has been working hard for decades to rebuild a food system that, in some ways, used to exist and was dismantled by consolidation and industrialization. With the […]