Supporting Land Access for Next Generation Farmers

Agrarian Trust has the mission to support land access for next generation farmers. In the next two decades, 400 million acres of U.S. farmland will change hands and the question of what will happen to that land when it reaches the market is crucial to the future of our food system. Just in time for this pivotal land transition is a new generation of young farmers, eager to become stewards of our land and healthfully provide for their communities. However, these farmers face ever greater odds in accessing affordable and secure land tenure; the price of land in the US has skyrocketed in the past decade, and one acre of farmland is lost to development every minute.

A sea change is needed to ensure secure, affordable tenure for this new generation of land stewards in this crucial moment of intergenerational land transition. Changing the system of agricultural land tenure in North America is critical not only for enabling new farmers but for also existing farmers pursuing sustainable and organic practices. The costs of producing food in ways that respect and enhance both social circumstances for farm labor but also environmental circumstances for the earth and climate are typically more expensive than ‘conventional’ methods. An ever increasing cost of securing land for production threatens to drive up the cost of quality, healthy, sustainable food beyond the means accessible to most people and the self-sustaining enterprise of sustainable farming itself. The Agrarian Trust is crafting the legal and social frameworks and contracts to enable land throughout the country to be placed in permanent trust with legally binding covenants that enable both regenerative stewardship and below market rate reciprocity relationships with farmers holding the lease or use rights.

Action for 1st Round of Funding

World Centric® has funded Agrarian Trust at this early stage to develop their legal structure and legal documentation frameworks for accepting land grants and putting them into a trust to be protected for agricultural use in the future. The documents are being developed on GitHub so as to be available as an open-sourced resource. Current progress includes; finishing drafting their organizational blueprint, filing for incorporation, and accepting the first two land bequests in upstate New York. With the first round of funding a draft of a Benevolent Investors Guide to Land was produced and submitted to a decentralized editorial team. The Agrarian Trust has the potential to fundamentally change the entire food system in this country and become a model for land tenure for the rest of the world.

Action for 2nd Round of Funding

World Centric® funded the development of a replicable blueprint legal bylaws and coalition to enable the widespread transition of farmland into commons ownership to enable farmers using sustainable practices to access land to produce goods in ways that are otherwise not financially feasible due to the distortions of land value in the current food system.