“Reallocating Land: from Market to Commons” Allied Organizations

April’s list of organizations is highlighted as part of our broader 50th Anniversary Celebration of E.F. Schumacher’s Small is Beautiful

“The power of ordinary people… lies in placing their sympathy and support with minority groups which have already started.” — E.F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful

The intent of our 2023 “Schumacher Conversations” series is to inspire audiences of various backgrounds and interests to “start where you are,” to join in ushering forward a more just and regenerative economy. Alongside each monthly conversation, we’re shining light on aligned organizations and initiatives that champion social and economic transformation in their respective fields. In curating these groups, we intend to provide inspired listeners with conduits to action, connecting individuals looking to support or join in with those already doing the work. Those recognized within April’s theme, “Reallocating Land: From Market to Commons,” are those already pioneering a new land ethic, and transforming land tenure in the present.  Each broadly represents an approach to land commoning — offering alternatives to the supremacy of universal private property, advancing models more accountable to community needs and ecological health.

• Dudley Street Neighbors Initiative
• Agrarian Trust
• Partners for Dignity and Rights
• Community Land Trust Network
• The East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative
• Center for Community Land Trust Innovation
• Grounded Solutions Network
• Veerhuis
• Terre de Liens
• Grond van Bestaan
• Access to Land
• European Community Land Trust Network
• Sustainable Housing for Inclusive and Cohesive Cities
• Community Land Scotland
• Ecoruralis
• Terre-en-Vue
• Kulturland
• De Landgenoten
• Biodynamic Land Trust

  The Dudley Street Neighbors Initiative (DSNI) works to empower residents of the Dudley Neighborhood of Roxbury and North Dorchester to organize, plan for, create, and control a vibrant, diverse, and high-quality neighborhood in collaboration with community partners. DSNI was formed in the 1980s by Dudley residents seeking to reclaim a neighborhood that had been ravaged by disinvestment, arson fires, and dumping.  To ensure development without displacement, DSNI created Dudley Neighbors Incorporated (DNI), a community land trust (CLT) that protects over 30 acres of the Dudley Neighborhood. Recognized as one of the most successful urban CLTs in the country, DNI is well known for its holistic approach to community development. The CLT not only has affordable housing on it, but public green spaces, farms, gardens, and commercial spaces, which get leased to small businesses and other nonprofits.  To learn more about CLTs you can visit the “What is a CLT?” tab on DNI’s website. There you can find links to websites, books, and videos that offer a deeper look into the CLT model and movement in the United States.   Agrarian Trust’s mission is to support land access for the next generation of farmers. They do this by facilitating the transfer of farmland into Agrarian Commons—locally governed land holding entities advancing cultural, ecological, and economic justice. By connecting next generation farmers with land tenure and affordable leases, Agrarian Commons are interrupting patterns of dispossession and land ownership consolidation.  In addition to the Agrarian Commons, Agrarian Trust is leading two other initiatives: Commons Alliance and FaithLands. Through the Commons Alliance, Agrarian Trust is building a member-based, open-source learning network of community-centered and land-based organizations, land stewards, service providers, and community members. FaithLands is a growing national movement to connect and inspire faith communities to use their land in new ways that promote ecological and human health, support local food and farming, enact reparative justice, and strengthen communities.   There are many ways you can take part in the Agrarian Commons movement. By visiting Agrarian Trust’s website you can learn how to donate your land to your local Agrarian Commons. They also offer step-by-step instructions on how to start an Agrarian Commons in your region if there isn’t one already. For those who just want to learn more about the Agrarian Commons model and our food system, visit the “Learn” tab.    In partnership with communities, Partners for Dignity & Rights works to build a broad movement for economic and social rights, including health, housing, education and work with dignity. Partners for Dignity & Rights advocates for public policies that guarantee the universal and equitable fulfillment of individuals’ social and economic rights in the United States.  Partners for Dignity & Rights recognizes that community control over the use of land is necessary for the development of human rights, and thus has made land and housing a central part of their work. They partnered with the Baltimore Housing Roundtable coalition and its anchor, the United Workers, to help create an Affordable Housing Trust Fund and establish community land trusts (CLT) as a trust fund priority. Following their “Affordable for Whom” conference, Partners for Dignity & Rights created a toolkit on CLTs.   You can access Partners for Dignity & Rights’ report “Community + Land + Trust: Tools for Development Without Displacement” and many other resources, ranging from Issue Briefs to Training Resources, via their website.   The Community Land Trust Network is the leading voice for the community land trust (CLT) movement in the United Kingdom. Their work is centered around the vision that every community can form a CLT to meet their local housing needs; that every local authority considers the CLT model for major regeneration and development sites; and that every developer and housing association considers the CLT partnership model for its projects.  Through ambitious and collaborative campaigns, the CLT Network is mainstreaming the community ownership of affordable homes and land. One such campaign is geared towards renewing the Community Housing Fund, which could help communities provide thousands of affordable homes.  Being a lead voice in the CLT movement, the CLT Network’s website is rich in CLT-related resources. They offer a comprehensive history of the CLT movement, highlight CLT success stories across England and Wales, provide ways to start a CLT, and much more.     East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative (EB PREC) facilitates BIPOC and allied communities to cooperatively organize, finance, purchase, occupy, and steward properties, taking them permanently off the speculative market. By helping to create community controlled assets EB PREC aims to address the root problems associated with poverty concentration and neighborhood disinvestment.  EB PREC currently holds title to the land and housing of four properties. Members who live on the cooperative’s properties will “purchase” a long-term lease, with financed monthly payments that simulate direct homeownership. EB PREC sets minimum standards of maintenance, but the residents control most decisions related to the property.  In their effort to combat displacement, EB PREC offers free Housing Navigation Resources for Oakland residents on their website. They also host regular orientations to give an overview of how their program works and answer questions.   The Center for Community Land Trust Innovation promotes and supports community land trusts and similar strategies of community-led development on community-owned land in countries throughout the world. To further their vision of a flourishing international CLT movement the Center plays six interrelated strategic roles: connection, cultivation, education, inclusion, preservation, and innovation.  Part of the Center’s work involves providing training, referral, and technical assistance to organizers and practitioners working with CLTs and similar strategies for the equitable and sustainable development of place-based communities. Through these connections they also facilitate collaborations, mainly between researchers and practitioners, to explore innovations in how CLTs are structured, operated, applied, and combined with other forms of tenure. The Center for Community Land Trust Innovation’s website is a treasure trove of information on CLTs. They offer a Global CLT Map, articles on CLTs in the Global South, a digital archive of historical materials tracing the origins and evolution of CLTs, academic research on CLTs, and much more. The Center also publishes books and monographs under its trademarked imprint: Terra Nostra Press.   Grounded Solutions Network is working towards a future where everyone has access to a home they can afford in economically and racially diverse communities of opportunity that foster better health, academic, and economic outcomes. They do this by offering technical assistance and policy support at the national, state, and local levels to create housing with lasting affordability and to build equitable neighborhoods.  Housing solutions that Grounded Solutions Network promotes include: the community land trust model, shared equity homeownership, and inclusionary housing programs. Working alongside their clients, they work from these housing options to craft solutions tailored to each community’s context and development needs.  In an effort to empower citizens to create affordable housing and build inclusive communities, Grounded Solutions Network provides a number of “Tools for Success”, which range from an online resource library to virtual trainings for collective learning. The Resource Library is free and easy to navigate. Grounded Solutions Network ensures their information is accessible by accompanying each resource with a list of “key take-aways”.    Located in the village of Varik in the Netherlands, Veerhuis is a hub for the new economy. Veerhuis was founded by Henry Mentink, an environmental and new economy activist, with the intention of providing individuals and organizations a space to think and work towards creating a new economy and society. The parcel of land on which Veerhuis is built is community owned and has been taken out of the market, exemplifying Henry’s belief that the whole Earth should be freed.  On April 22, 2022, Earth Day, Mentink embarked on a forty-five day walk from Veerhuis to the headquarters of UNESCO in Paris, France. All he brought with him was a backpack and a green metal wheelbarrow filled with soil collected from all over the world. His mission: to nominate the whole Earth for UNESCO’s World Heritage List. In requesting that the entire Earth be placed on the World Heritage List, Henry is calling into question the legitimacy of private property and borders. Part of Mentink and Veerhuis’ work is promoting the Community Land Trust model. To learn more about Veerhuis and the work they are doing you can visit their website.   Terre de Liens is a national federation based in France whose mission is to ensure that land is preserved and treated as a common good. They do this by working to free the land from speculation, to promote land access for peasant farmers, to promote citizen-led projects that aim to revitalize rural areas, and to support ecologically beneficial agriculture. The Terre de Liens Federation is made up of 19 associations who implement the Terre de Liens project at the local level.  Facing an increasing loss of agricultural land in France, Tierre de Liens’ main focus has been on the acquisition of land and farms that will join their farm network. They believe that peasant access to agricultural land is crucial for the preservation of food security and environmental sustainability. The lands and farms acquired by Terre de Liens are removed from the speculative market and leased long-term to farmers who implement ecological farming practices.   Terre de Liens has over 300 completed and ongoing farm acquisitions. On their website they provide information, such as location and type of production, on all their farms. If you would like to know more about the work Terre de Liens is doing you can visit the “News” section of their website, which contains articles, press releases, and information on upcoming events and trainings.   Grond van Bestaan is a foundation based in the Netherlands working to innovate land ownership, land access, as well as lease and property law. They do this by collaborating with local communities to create local land commons using the community land trust model. The foundation is most concerned with increasing access to land for agroecological farmers.  One of Grond van Bestaan’s current initiatives is the development of an agroecological park on the western edge of Amsterdam. The project is called Food Park Amsterdam. The site is 43 hectares and holds the potential of becoming a place where many urban farmers can cultivate. The municipality of Amsterdam wants to turn the site into a distribution area, which exemplifies the need for arable land to be secured for farming.  For those who want to learn more about the commons and alternative forms of land tenure Grond van Bestaan offers courses via Economy Transformers. Through their website you can also read more about their various initiatives and find ways to get involved.  

Access to Land is a European network of fifteen grassroots organizations securing land for agroecological farming. Witnessing a decline in agricultural lands and the disappearance of small farms in Europe, the group works together by sharing experiences, ideas, and practical tools to support farmers in accessing land and engaging in good land stewardship. They are also focused on raising awareness of land issues, land as commons, and grassroots initiatives among citizens, consumers, farmers’ organizations, civil society organizations, and policy makers.  Access to Land strongly believes that everybody can and should have a voice in defining how land is used and managed, as well as its agricultural orientations, which is why they are strong promoters of land as commons. For them, managing land as commons means finding a better balance between the needs and capacities of landowners, farmers, and other users of land. Much of Access to Land’s member organizations are experimenting with various ways of managing land as commons, such as freeing land from the market and holding it in perpetuity for the benefit of farmers.  In an effort to bolster the work of organizations who are dedicated to increasing access to land for agroecological farmers in Europe, Access to Land has created a directory of said organizations to make them known more broadly, connect them with one another, and to facilitate their access to tools and resources. Access to Land also provides a number of other resources on their website for those interested in learning more about this issue. They have case studies, land data, videos, and more.    The European Community Land Trust Network is working to enable the growth of Community Land Trusts (CLT) across Europe and support them to maximize their long-term social and environmental impact. They want CLTs to be recognized as a mainstream option for affordable, inclusive and sustainable land use and housing across Europe. The Network is set to launch in June of 2023.  The three main objectives of the Network are: 1) to catalyze a new economic thinking by introducing CLTs to a wide audience so that they may be picked up by broad coalitions; 2) to influence public policy by encouraging policy makers to create a supportive environment for CLTs to grow by reforming housing and land laws and policies; and 3) to encourage businesses to transform their practices by collaborating with CLTs on their development projects. Although the European Community Land Trust Network is still in the process of forming the Network, appointing a Board, and hiring permanent staff, they have a number of tools and resources available on their website. These range from a Local Advocacy Toolkit to an Action Plan that presents a shared Financing Strategy for CLTs in Europe. 

Sustainable Housing for Inclusive and Cohesive Cities (SHICC) is a project supported by Interreg that seeks to support the establishment of more successful Community Land Trusts (CLT) in cities across the North-West European region. This project comes as North-west Europe faces a housing affordability crisis, which is threatening the social and economic sustainability of its cities.  By the end of their project SHICC aims to have established a widespread movement of CLTs across the region and CLTs to be widely recognised as a mainstream option for housing supply and urban renewal in all countries. Having already invested in four existing CLTs in Brussels, Ghent, Lille, and London, SHICC is now in the process of creating a supportive funding environment to strengthen those four initial pilot projects.  To promote the CLT model as a viable tool to improve the social and economic sustainability of cities, SHICC provides a list of resources on their website. These include a tool that measures CLT’s social impact, a European CLT guide, CLT financial case studies, and more.    Community Land Scotland was established to provide a collective voice for community land owners in Scotland. They have over 100 member organizations across Scotland, ranging from community landowners of major crofting estates in the Western Isles to inner city community hubs in diverse communities. Their vision is for the community ownership of land and buildings to be a significant driver of sustainable development across the whole of Scotland. Community Land Scotland is currently spearheading five individual projects, one of which includes the launch of the Community Ownership Hub for Glasgow and Clyde Valley. There they are working in more depth on urban issues, promoting community ownership and land reform, and doing research to improve urban community-led and owned development.  In addition to their four projects, Community Land Scotland is working to influence policies that affect rural and urban communities, particularly around land reform, repopulation, urban development, community empowerment and use of natural resources. Part of this influence requires the dissemination of educational material on community owned land. Their website contains a great number of informative material, from policy resources, to case studies, to webinars.    Ecoruralis is an association of Romanian farmers and peasants, involved in food production through subsistence and semi-subsistence ecological agriculture. The association was founded in 2009 with the mission of representing the interests and rights of peasants, small producers, and people working in the Romanian countryside.  One of Ecoruralis’s main initiatives, the Right to Land program, is based on the belief that agricultural land is an indispensable human resource and a human right. The Right to Land program works to combat land grabs and agricultural land grabs, which they define as the control of land by any person or entity for the purpose of speculation, extraction, and resource control, to the detriment of agroecology, land management, food sovereignty, and human rights. Part of this effort involves the promotion of alternative land tenure models, such as the commons.  Education is a big part of Ecoruralis’s work to promote the rights of peasants. For their Right to Land program they have several informative reports on subjects ranging from the succession of farms in Romania to the concentration of land grabbing in Europe. To access all their reports, visit the Library tab on their website.   Terre-en-Vue is a nonprofit organization that brings together citizens, organizations, and public actors who wish to increase access to land in Belgium for ecological agriculture. The organization was born out of the Support Network for Peasant Agriculture, inspired by France’s Terre de Liens movement.  Their primary focus is on removing land from the speculative market and placing it under collective control, specifically for agroecological farmers. Terre-en-Vue is able to acquire agricultural land with the help of public donations, known as shares. The shares are intended to foster a solidarity movement among farmers and citizens. To strengthen this movement, Terre-en-Vue organizes a number of public events and workshops that bring together these key actors.  A list of the farms supported by Terre-en-Vue, in addition to their ongoing agroecological projects, are available on their website. There, you can also access information on their upcoming events and workshops, and discover more concrete ways to support their work. Kulturland is reenvisioning a new commons. A cooperative made up of 1,460 members, Kulturland organizes long term communal ownership of agricultural land for rural organic farming. They bring together customers, friends, neighboring city dwellers, and general supporters of a particular farm to contribute money to the cooperative through cooperative shares. Kulturland then uses those funds to purchase land with partnering farms.  Through Kulturland’s website you can get to know all the farms they are in partnership with. You can also access information on the increase of land prices, the importance of ecological farming, and other areas of research that serve as the foundation for Kulturland’s work.   De Landgenoten is a cooperative and foundation that works on securing access to land for organic farmers. Recognizing the great difficulty organic farmers face in finding affordable and available agricultural land, De Landgenoten buys land with funds from shareholders and donors and provides long-term leases to organic farmers. These long-term rental contracts help stimulate the growth of local sustainable agriculture, ensure the continuity of farms, and protect soil fertility.  In addition to removing agricultural land from the speculative market, De Landgenoten offers free land management services and advice to landowners on how they can have their land cultivated sustainably. They also connect retiring organic farmers with organic farmers searching for land. On De Landgenoten’s website they have a series of profiles of organic farmers looking for land.  To learn more about De Landgenoten and their work you can visit their website.
Biodynamic Land Trust works to secure land for regenerative agriculture that provides fresh local food, connects communities to land, supports land-based education, nature and wellbeing, creates rural jobs and improves countryside economies throughout the United Kingdom. The land trust is made up of member share-holders, whose community shares are used to purchase available agricultural lands that are then leased to biodynamic farmers.  On their website you can access a number of resources—articles and guides with topics ranging from biodynamic farming to financial literacy for farmers. Biodynamic Land Trust also has resources specifically for entrant farmers and growers and for those interested in donating land.