Juanita Morrow Nelson (August 17, 1923 – March 9, 2015) was “an ardent pacifist, war tax resister, civil rights activist and supporter of local, organic agriculture.”[1] Juanita was a mentor to Equity Trust’s founder Chuck Matthei, and her deeply held values helped to shape Equity Trust as an organization. We wish to honor Juanita’s tremendous life.
May …
Jim Oldham, Executive Director of Equity Trust, will participate in two panel presentations at Farmland, Food and Livable Communities, American Farmland Trust’s National Conference in Lexington, Kentucky, October 20-22, 2014.
The first session will cover Land Access and Securing Affordable Farmland with Kathy Ruhf, Executive Director, Land for Good and Equity Trust Board member (moderator); Jim Oldham, Executive …
“The saving of the Stone Ridge Orchard is a miraculous feat of community support, vision, hope, funding, and good fortune,” according to Marie Doyon’s article, “Saving the Stone Ridge Orchard” in Country Wisdom News, a regional source for age-old and modern thoughts on food, the land and the home.
Read more about Equity Trust’s work with Stone …
Two innovative small farms and a nonprofit community development group repaid their Equity Trust loans this summer, with thanks to the Equity Trust lending community that made those loans possible.
Whippoorwill Farm was the first CSA farm on Martha’s Vineyard, almost twenty-five years ago. Now there are many! Lockhart Family Farm brought the CSA model to the “slow meat” movement…
Johanna Rosen, Program Associate at Equity Trust, participated in a panel discussion on Developing Models for Predictable Land Tenure at the “Turning Vacant Acres into Community Resources” Symposium put on by 596 Acres, April 22-23 at The New School, NY.
This session provided an overview of models that take communities past temporary access and land …
Announcing the launch of a new website put together by Greg Rosenberg and John Emmeus Davis: Roots & Branches: A Gardener’s Guide to the Origins and Evolution of the Community Land Trust. Found at www.cltroots.org, it features dozens of colorful graphics by Bonnie Acker, enlivening a digital archive of photographs, videos, interviews, and documents. This collection will grow richer …
“One thing that makes Equity Trust radical is its focus not just on the active preservation of land, but on the challenge of evolving social values about what property ownership should look like.” This quote comes from Antonio Roman-Alcalá as he featured Equity Trust as one of “Five Groups Working to Help New Farmers Access Land” on Civil …
Jim Oldham, Director of Equity Trust, will participate in a panel discussion on Tools and Techniques for Farmland Conservation at the NYS Land Conservation Summit, April 10-11 in West Point, NY.
Details: http://nyslandsummit.org/.
This session will provide an overview of tools and techniques that can be used to protect active agricultural land. Panelists will present the challenges faced …
Jim Oldham, Director of Equity Trust, will be presenting at the February 22, 2014 Farming Our Future Conference in Columbia County, NY. Conference details: http://www.farmingourfuture.org/.
Jim will join Marissa Codey of the Columbia Land Conservancy to lead a workshop about farmland access strategies used by conservation organizations. Marissa will describe how the Conservancy helps make farmland available to farmers …
Stone Soup Community Center celebrated the near completion of the Green Rebuild and Collaborative Training Project with a Ribbon Cutting on Tuesday, December 3, 2013. 
The New London Homeless Hospitality Center (NLHHC) celebrated the opening of its new facility with an Open House and Dedication event on October 16, 2013. Equity Trust Director Jim Oldham attended along with Anne Scheibner, Paul Jakoboski, and Hannah Gant of the St. Francis House (our Francis Fund partners). About 300 people attended the celebration, including Connecticut Governor Malloy. 
The National Young Farmers Coalition (NYFC) released a report entitled “Farmland Conservation 2.0: How Land Trusts Can Save America’s Working Farms.” The report outlines the ways that current farmland conservation practices are failing to keep land in production and farmland affordable to farmers. The report highlights innovative farmland conservation models and reinforces Equity Trust’s message of the importance …
Equity Trust has moved our office from Turners Falls, MA to Amherst, MA to be closer to where staff live and thus reduce our commute and carbon footprint. We are delighted have found a home in the beautiful Nacul Center for Ecological Architecture, a redesigned church just a few blocks from downtown Amherst, which houses an art gallery and several offices and studios. 
Dimond Hill Farm, a landmark property on the outskirts of Concord, New Hampshire, stewarded by Equity Trust, has just grown its land base by almost 25%.
A working farm since the 1700s, Dimond Hill was protected in 2006, through a partnership among Equity Trust, the Trust for Public Lands, Five Rivers Conservation Trust, the NH Preservation Alliance, and the City of Concord. Under the ownership structure designed to permanently protect the farm and make it affordable for future farmers, Equity Trust owns title to the farm, the Conservation Trust and the Preservation Alliance both hold easements on the property, and the land is currently farmed by sixth generation farmer Jane Presby under a lifetime agreement. 
Jeff and Annie Main, of Good Humus Produce in Capay, CA, have been featured in an article posted on the Farm Aid website. Read about the history of their farm and about their work with Equity Trust and with One Farm at a Time, an initiative of several California food co-ops to raise funds to preserve the sustainability of …
On April 4, 2013 Executive Director Jim Oldham joined filmmaker Chuck Schultz and others at MIT in Cambridge, MA, for a screening and discussion of The Last Crop, a film-in-progress sharing the story of Jeff and Annie Main and their efforts to permanently protect their Good Humus Farm in California’s Central Valley. Equity Trust has supported this effort for years, …
Equity Trust shared approaches for farm preservation at the NOFA Summer Conference in August 2012 and at the National CLT Conference in September 2012. On August 12, we led a workshop on Strategies and Tools for Saving Local Farms at the annual summer conference of NOFA (Northeast Organic Farming Association) on the UMass campus in Amherst, MA. On September 13, …
In April 2012, the Judith Haskel Brewer Fund of the Community Foundation Serving Richmond and Central Virginia made a $15,000 grant in support of the Equity Trust Fund.…
The Equity Trust Fund is one of 20 funds profiled in Promoting Sustainable Food Systems Through Impact Investing, a report by The Springcreek Foundation aimed at helping socially responsible investors “play a critical role in the establishment and maintenance of regional sustainable food systems in the United States.”
June 2011…
Equity Trust's farmland preservation work is featured in Follow the Food, in the March 2012 issue of FA Green, a magazine offering "strategies for sustainable, responsible, investing and giving." 
