Who We Are & What We Do
The Northeast Farmers of Color Land Trust* (NEFOC LT) is a hybrid model land trust, bringing together a community land trust model and a conservation land trust model to reimagine land access as well as conservation and stewardship of communities and ecosystems with the goal of manifesting a community vision that uplifts global Indigenous, Black, and POC relationships with land, skills, and lifeways.
We are advancing permanent and secure land tenure through rematriating land and seeds; farmland stewardship, preservation and expansion; envisioning ways to be in reciprocity with land and creation, and by reimagining what the word “farmer” stands for.
We are working to conserve land through protecting native species ecosystems, engaging in regenerative farming and agroforestry, and advancing environmental policy that upholds the Rights of Nature (Personhood).
Our land trust centers BIPOC voices and leadership and honors Indigenous sovereignty, while healing colonial harm and protecting our future by creating a carbon drawdown in the Northeast and informing climate policy locally, regionally, and nationally.
We are sharing and advancing skills and knowledge with and for BIPOC farmers, land stewards, and earth workers, connecting them with the resources, training, education, and land that will enhance their ability to thrive.
NEFOC LT staff and Board of Directors embody diverse skill sets in cooperative development, climate justice, food and land sovereignty, farming and herbalism, education, and Global Indigenous ways of honoring the land and one another. NEFOC LT is incubated by Soul Fire Farm and supported by a constellation of values-aligned allied and sibling organizations providing technical and legal support.
Our Vision
Land in Indigenous, Black, and Brown hands… working together to liberate the land, feed our communities, and uplift conservation of more-than-human beings!
Our Pathways
HOnoring Indigenous Sovereignty: Indigenous Community Consultation & Partnerships
We are developing stages of consultation and beginning partnership outreach that centers the voices of Indigenous communities and traditional leadership within NEFOC LT, building relationships to undo, rather than replicate, the harm perpetuated by colonialism land theft and genocide. We are exploring ways of honoring Indigenous sovereignty using tools such as cultural respect agreements, conservation easements, rights of first refusal, voluntary taxation and land rematriation. Our annual budget for this work, including support for our Indigenous Advisory Council, is $297,700.
Land Acquisition and Linking
We aim to acquire 2,000+ acres of land in the next five years through land return, donation, rematriation, and purchase; and connect farmers to land through facilitating up to 50 leases during this period. We also plan to acquire a 100-500 acre parcel of land to build a flagship community with incubator farms, commons for production, child care, health care, and integrated ecosystem restoration. We are raising $4,000,000 over the next 3 years to care for this land in perpetuity.
Farmer Resources and Training
We are developing and expanding existing collaborations with allied and sibling organizations to ensure farmers and land stewards of color have secure access to resources, including training, education, markets, business development, and financial planning, that are needed to thrive on the land. In 2019, we reached nearly 4,000 individuals through 24 events, workshops, and keynotes. We are raising $300,000 annually to support the NEFOC Network with training, skillshares and other virtual and in-person programming, including $596,608 annually to fund our Land Network program, including a Network Coordinator, Network Mapping Project, Land Linking program, Community Leaders Fellowship, and regional network gatherings.
Policy and Advocacy
We are working at local, regional, state, and national levels to create policies in support of Climate Transition, BIPOC land access, and Indigenous and regenerative land management. Our policy initiatives will first pick away the stitching of white supremacy in the systems that govern food, land access, and community resilience and the systems that underlie it, and will re-weave a new tapestry of policies that will enrich all lives. We are raising $125,000 annually to support the advancement of policy through listening sessions, policy working groups, and a policy advisor.
Why NEFOC?
The challenges people of color experience are a direct representation of the crystalline structure of settler colonialism. Access to land is the number one barrier for people of color to feed our communities healthy, fresh food. Dispossession and theft of land and labor from Indigenous nations and Black folks built the foundation of the United States, cutting us off from health, wealth, language, knowledge, and sense of place. Toxins such as heavy metals and pesticides are disproportionately concentrated in poor communities of color. Lead exposure, for example, is 47% higher in Black communities than white, resulting in disproportionately poor social determinants of health and a climate crisis the likes of which we have yet to fully understand.
Planting seeds for the coming generations!
Meanwhile, farmland is vanishing across the country as developments encroach on agriculturally viable land. What farmland is still left is threatened by agricultural runoff from commodity farms, nutrient depletion, shrinking biodiversity, and skyrocketing prices, all symptoms of late stage capitalism and settler colonialism.
White landowners currently control between 95-98% of the farmland in the United States and nearly 100% in the Northeast; and receive over 97% of agriculture-related financial assistance. The 2018 Farm Bill, like its policy predecessors, set aside hundreds of millions in commodity subsidies for technology, genetic manipulation, corporatized plant and animal varieties, and flow into international markets. This system heavily privileges large farms with access to capital, leaving little support for farmers of color who often work on a smaller, more sustainable scale.
We honor and recognize that the Northeast is Indigenous territory that has been stewarded by sovereign nations since time immemorial. Between 1776 and 1887, 1.5 billion acres of land was stolen from Indigenous nations in the U.S. either by executive order or treaty signed under duress. The Northeast was settled prior to 1776 and is primarily unceded (lack of treaty) territory, stolen from Indigenous peoples and settled without consent.
Our food is our technology to withstand changes that are beyond our control. By increasing access to fresh, culturally-appropriate food, medicines, and connection to land, our bodies will have an equal chance to adapt and survive. Our diets hold vast opportunities for creative expression and joyful experiences that are currently untapped. By reimagining an economy that is not only sustainable but regenerative and hyper-local, we will feed our families, communities, and nations.
Reconnecting BIPOC with the land fortifies the longevity of our communities’ elders and history holders, contributes to the school success and vitality of our young people, and carries our ancestors’ seed stories – of spirit ecology, resistance, intergenerational collaboration, agricultural ingenuity, and the indelible connection between healthy land and the sustenance it offers.