Reallocating Land: From Market to Commons | Schumacher Conversations

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Z0zOGa6G-8&t=4520s

 As the 50th anniversary of Small is Beautiful, 2023 is our opportunity to advance solutions to today’s social, economic, and environmental challenges that build on Schumacher’s original vision. To meet this calling, the Schumacher Center is convening a monthly series featuring New Economic thinkers, builders and activists from a range of fields. “Schumacher Conversations: Envisioning the Next 50 Years” brings together change-makers whose work today is actively shaping a ‘small is beautiful’ future, organized around 12 key themes and fields of activism. April’s theme is Reallocating Land: From Market to Commons. This online event took place Thursday, April 20th at 2PM (EST). Panelists: Severine von Tscharner Fleming is an organic farmer, advocate, publisher and organizer based in Maine. She serves as a founding board president of Agrarian Trust— a US land-access advocacy organization working in the framework of the commons around issues of land succession. Peace-pilgrim, life-long activist, and former monk, Satish Kumar has been inspiring global change for over 50 years. An author and speaker, Satish founded The Resurgence Trust, an educational charity. He was Editor of the charity’s magazine, Resurgence & Ecologist, for over 40 years. Sjoerd Wartena is a sustainable food systems advocate and Founder of Terre de Liens, a civil society organization devoted to ecologically-friendly agriculture and affordable access to land. Terre de Liens addresses the difficulties organic and peasant farmers face to secure agricultural land. In Small is Beautiful, E.F. Schumacher called for radically reorienting societies’ prevailing attitude toward land as a commodity. This includes the ways we treat and nurture soil as a natural resource, the ways govern land access and make decisions about land use— even they way we relate ethically or spiritually to the land itself. Today, our climate and biodiversity crises and pressing needs for housing and other infrastructure all call for a reckoning with the role of land — this precious gift of god or nature — in a just, regenerative society. April’s panelists are those already pioneering a new land ethic, and transforming land tenure in the present. Each participant represents a particular approach to land commoning — offering alternatives to the supremacy of universal private property with models more accountable to community needs and ecological health. Each panelist is invited to reflect on themes in Small Is Beautiful that connect with their own thinking and activism. These reflections are intended to open up a broader conversation on the topic of localizing production. An audience Q&A will follow moderated by our host, Natasha Hulst. The Schumacher Center advocates the hybrid land-tenure model of Community Land Trusts: encouraging the incorporation of non-profit entities in every community so they may receive donations of land or funding and secure access to land for farming, housing, and other local needs in perpetuity.