Black/Land: New Questions

From the NOFA-VT Winter ConferenceFebruary 12, 2012

The Black/Land Project

www.BlackLandProject.org

Is this land?

How would you describe your relationship to land and place?

What forces shape that relationship?

Key Questions about Land Loss

• How has government defined my relationship to land in positive ways? In negative ways?

• Do I value relationships to land other than ownership? What are they?

• Where have new Vermonters established a sense of belonging to place? Where have they not? Why?

• Who, other than farmers, cares about laws governing access to land? How am I connected to these people?

Key Questions : Historical Trauma

• How do we talk with people about the value of organic farming when their history in agriculture is a source of pain?

• How have you transcended your peoples historical trauma related to land? What helped you to do that?

• What past grievances about land and place still shape your community today? How does this grief show up?

Who developed and popularized the U-Pick and CSA models for financially sustainable small farms?

Key Questions: Expanding the Narrow Frame

• Where do you have a narrow frame about relationship to land? What has it kept you from seeing?

• What are all the different ways people in your community have a relationship to land?

• What historically black models and sources of knowledge inform your organic farming practice ?

BlackLandProject.org