Agrarian Land Trust

Agrarian Land Trust

Member since: 2021

Working towards these commitments

Respect, protect and strengthen the land rights of women and men living in poverty, ensuring that no one is deprived of the use and control of the land on which their well-being and human dignity depend, including through eviction, expulsion or exclusion, and with compulsory changes to tenure undertaken only in line with international law and standards on human rights.
1

Secure Tenure Rights

Ensure equitable land distribution and public investment that supports small-scale farming systems, including through redistributive agrarian reforms that counter excessive land concentration, provide for secure and equitable use and control of land, and allocate appropriate land to landless rural producers and urban residents, whilst supporting smallholders as investors and producers, such as through cooperative and partnership business models.
2

Strong Small-Scale Farming Systems

Recognize and protect the diverse tenure and production systems upon which people’s livelihoods depend, including the communal and customary tenure systems of smallholders, indigenous peoples, pastoralists, fisher folks, and holders of overlapping, shifting and periodic rights to land and other natural resources, even when these are not recognized by law, and whilst also acknowledging that the well-being of resource-users may be affected by changes beyond the boundaries of the land to which they have tenure rights.
3

Diverse Tenure Systems

Enable the role of local land users in territorial and ecosystem management, recognizing that sustainable development and the stewardship of ecosystems are best achieved through participatory decision-making and management at the territorial-level, empowering local land users and their communities with the authority, means and incentives to carry out this responsibility.
6

Locally-managed ecosystems

Ensure that processes of decision-making over land are inclusive, so that policies, laws, procedures and decisions concerning land adequately reflect the rights, needs and aspirations of individuals and communities who will be affected by them. This requires the empowerment of those who otherwise would face limitations in representing their interests, particularly through support to land users' and other civil society organizations that are best able to inform, mobilize and legitimately represent marginalized land users, and their participation in multi-stakeholder platforms for policy dialogue.
7

Inclusive decision-making

Ensure transparency and accountability, through unhindered and timely public access to all information that may contribute to informed public debate and decision-making on land issues at all stages, and through decentralization to the lowest effective level, to facilitate participation, accountability and the identification of locally appropriate solutions
8

Transparent and accessible information

Mission

Support land access for the next generation of farmers

Objectives

Create and support a national network of community-based landholding subsidiary organizations (Agrarian Commons) in states across the country (US); acquire (via land gift or purchase) and transition farmland to be held by Agrarian Commons; provide organizational support to Agrarian Commons boards providing long-term lease tenure to farmers growing food for local food systems with agroecological practices; contribute to fundraising for long-term stewardship and improvement of land, structures, and infrastructure.

Constituencies

National - United States of America (Western, Midwestern, Northeastern, Southeastern).