black/land new questions nofa-vt feb 2012
TRANSCRIPT
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