New possibilities for farmland access byond just ownership, with Kristina Villa

Since I’ve been working in the regenerative agriculture and ecosystem restoration sector for about a decade now, there are a number of subjects and questions that keep coming up again and again. Everything from How to finance a regenerative transition, What initial steps to take to accelerate ecosystem restoration, and the big one, How can I get access to land. Anyone who has been in this space for any time knows that land access has become one of the biggest hurdles for people who are motivated to start farming, regardless of the enterprise or practices they want to start. Even people who come from landed families face difficulties in transferring land ownership in a way that doesn’t saddle the recipient with debt. The fact that land has become a financial commodity and the demand from developers and speculators has all contributed to soaring prices and predatory loan conditions too. Yet there are alternatives, and that’s exactly what we’re going to explore in this episode where I’ll be speaking with Kristina Villa.

Kristina is the co-executive director of the Farmer's Land Trust, a farmer, communicator, and community coordinator who believes that our connection to the soil is directly related to the health of our bodies, economy, and society. With over a decade of farming, communication, and fundraising experience, Kristina enjoys using her skill sets to share photos, stories, and information in engaging ways which help to inspire change in human habits and mindsets, causing the food system, climate, and overall well-being of the world to improve. Kristina has spent the last several years of her professional career saving farmland from development and securing it in nonprofit land holding structures that give farmers, stewards and ranchers long-term and affordable access and tenure to it. Most of her work in the land access space has focused on equitable land security for BIPOC growers, addressing the inequities and disparities in how land is owned and accessed in this country. In this episode we cover the vast topic of land access, while touching on the history of land privatization and how so many groups of people have been systematically removed from land access, how land has become increasingly unobtainable, especially for farmers, traditional models of common land access and how the farmland commons offers a modern legal template for equitable land access for farmers in the modern context. We really take the time to go into specifics here as we explore case studies of non-profits that have setup farmland commons in their communities, how those legal entities are organized and maintained, and how the basic structure can be adapted to the unique needs and focus of the communities that they serve. This is a very important topic for anyone interested in non-conventional paths to farmland access and tenureship, but also for those who might be considering retirement from their own farm and are motivated to enable a legacy of stewardship on their farm rather than selling the landbase itself. Learn more at thefarmerslandtrust.org