At Groundswell, when we talk about land, we acknowledge its deep connection to policy and power.
As an organization training people to be farmers, land is at the backbone of our work. Land is also at the root of racial equity, food sovereignty, economic prosperity, health and wellbeing, and the climate crisis. Land has been used to disempower and oppress the same peoples who were its original stewards. It's the mechanism from which slavery prospered during colonization. Many of the tenets of “sustainable” and “regenerative” agriculture, for which Groundswell’s Core Values are rooted in, were developed and practiced by Indigenous people and brought to the U.S. by enslaved African people. We must consider the intersection of all these issues as we approach our mission of “creating a diverse, sustainable and equitable food system”.
Our land access work is rooted in forming deep relationships with diverse people and the land, working collectively to address ongoing land-based injustices, and ultimately to work towards the redistribution of land and resources to Black, Indigenous, and People of Color.
Central to all of our land access work is our membership in the Land Access Reparations & Reconciliation Working Group. This Working Group is one of the accountability partners that directs Groundswell land access and land linking activities (see below). The Working Group has created a web site of its own to serve as the landing page and central point for online communication about ongoings, events and resources.
