Despite increasing interest in urban agriculture, little exists to help farmers navigate access to land in urban settings. Jo Rosen of Equity Trust and Kathy Ruhf of Land for Good co-authored a guide that addresses urban land access for commercial farmers. The guide looks at the unique challenges in locating urban properties, and dealing with urban ordinances, soil issues, and landowners, for example. Innovative urban tenure arrangements are featured. This guide is available in pdf format: Farmland Access in Urban Settings. The guide also appeared as an article in the Spring 2018 issue of NOFA’S The Natural Farmer.
Equity Trust was one of over 40 partner organizations, agencies and individual experts brought together by Land For Good for their Land Access Project Phase 2 (LAP2), a three-year regional collaboration. As part of a “Tenure Innovations Task Force,” a subcommittee looked at urban land access for commercial farming.