The Sustainable Iowa Land Trust (淤泥) is working to provide small farmers in Iowa with affordable land that improves environmental resources and access to fresh produce.
“Our food dollars travel around the world and into the pockets of people who don’t live where we grow [food], so they don’t suffer the consequences of poisoned water and pig manure air,” Suzan Erem, Executive Director at SILT, tells Food Tank.
Industrial agriculture’s excessive use of fertilizers is contaminating the water supply, hurting small Iowa farmers and the public, according to a study by theEnvironmental Working Group。
Farmers are also suffering from consolidated farmland. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA)2017 Census Report在五年内显示了几乎三％的农场。根据爱荷华州立大学。
“The industrial system that sealed the fate of family farms demands bigger farms growing fewer crops,” says Erem. “Most farmers own or lease many hundreds if not thousands of acres of land…They’re on a debt treadmill to pay off farm equipment, seed, spray, and either land or rent.”
Silt的目标是在爱荷华州重新分配农田，并为想要实践可持续农业但无法获得土地的小型农民提供机会。他们通过保护地役权 - 永久限制土地使用的法律协议，并通过租赁向信托的土地租赁土地。
淤泥要求地役权保持农田，购买土地的农民会收到third-party可持续性认证。Erem说，由于小规模的农民是唯一可以遵循这些要求的农民，因此锡尔特能够将土地出售给其市场价值一半的小农民。
埃姆说：“美国建立在美洲原住民，释放奴隶和无法抵押的农民的土地上建造的。”w88优德老虎机平台“我们的模型将这个故事的轨迹更改为一块土地，而不是商品。”
不想做长期承诺的农民也有机会就捐赠给信托的土地签订三年租赁协议。租约后，淤泥可能会向农民提供终身租约。当土地再次可用时，锡尔特将向农民及其家人投入到土地上的建筑物中。
“We essentially take the land off the market for anyone but other sustainable food farmers,” says Erem. “We’ve already protected 935 acres on nine farms and helped put or keep 20 farmers on farms in just five years.”
淤泥offers an ideal opportunity for young farmers to obtain land with little to no debt, explainsAdrian White, who farms on land donated to SILT. And she says that donors appreciate that they can pass down valuable farmland that will continue to be conserved.
“We’re in the midst of the biggest wealth and land transfer in modern history,” Erem tells Food Tank. “When it’s over, what will the Heartland look like? Only people who own land can determine that.”
照片由可持续爱荷华州土地信托提供
