Systemic economic injustice, structural racism, and gender inequity are major barriers to the advancement of LSP’s mission. These forces are interconnected and impact every facet of our work. Understanding how they affect our work and ultimately dismantling these systems of oppression is required for LSP to achieve the change we seek in the world. Addressing systemic injustices also gives us the opportunity to participate in the healing part of the movement. As we care for the soil, we participate in the healing of the land. As we work to understand each other and eliminate oppression, we participate in the healing of community. Moving forward, we will use the following descriptions to understand how our work is impacted by these powerful inequities and how we will work to dismantle them.

Economic Justice

We believe that each person has the right to have a dignified, productive, and creative life. We depend on each other, and we are invested in each other’s success. However, the economy we live in today is controlled by major corporations, which prioritize their profits and control above all else. Huge corporations exert influence over every aspect of our farm and food system, consolidating wealth, land, and profits for a few while rural communities and the land suffer.

What we need is an economy that supports the family-sized farms that are on the land now and expands land access and secures land tenure for all people who want to farm, including people of color, Indigenous people, and women. We need a people-centered economy and a people-centered government that support opportunities for meaningful work with compensation which allows families to flourish. We need quality housing, services, and infrastructure that connect us and allow for innovation. We envision stronger connections among people who live, work, and eat in rural, urban, and suburban communities, allowing them to build a shared prosperity together. We believe economic decisions should be shaped by the people directly impacted by them; these decisions about natural resources and the land should serve the people and promote stewardship of the earth.

Gender Justice

To achieve the vibrant, resilient communities we envision, everyone’s energies and full creative potential must be unleashed. This can’t happen without equity in opportunity for everyone, whatever gender identity they have. Women and gender non-conforming people increasingly make up the ranks of farmers. They have been essential farm partners for generations, and many more are inheriting farms and becoming beginning farmers.

We embrace all as farmers and welcome everyone who aspires to farm and care for the land. Family farms are part of the multitude of farming operations and relationships that make up LSP’s membership. There are many different kinds of household and small community relationships and structures that people rely on to farm together, and there are new kinds of farms emerging all the time. All of these farms matter and are part of the fabric of small and mid-sized farms that LSP believes is essential to stewardship of the land.

Women and gender non-binary people, those who farm and those who do not, are leaders in our communities, and their power and ability to create positive change grows with the advancement of gender justice.

LSP has the opportunity to demonstrate in practice what gender equity looks like and can mean for all of us. Ensuring one’s full contribution paves the way for a society based on stewardship, sustainability, economic justice, and racial equity.

Racial Justice

LSP believes every person — of any race, rural or urban, old or young — has value that can’t be earned or taken away. We believe healthy rural communities and sustainable agriculture are not possible without addressing racism and racial disparities in our communities and valuing the wisdom and contributions of people from all backgrounds. We all benefit when we are united behind a common goal of a society where everyone can thrive. We believe that achieving racial equity is the work of white people in collaboration with people of color and Indigenous communities. Towards this goal, LSP seeks to lead as a mostly white, mostly rural membership organization to act in real and sustained solidarity. This work takes many forms and we are learning as we move forward. In January 2017, LSP’s management team
adopted five strategies to advance racial justice:

• Organizing white rural Midwesterners, leading with values, and winning on issues that matter to
them, while being explicit that we stand for racial justice, and linking to the larger movement for
stewardship and justice that we are helping to build.
• Racial justice training, education, action, and analysis with LSP’s staff, members, and leaders.
• Movement organizing — LSP joining with, sometimes following and sometimes providing
leadership to, an emerging multi-racial movement of allies, working to achieve economic,
environmental, gender, and racial justice.
• Showing up and standing with allied organizations and communities of color and indigenous
communities that come under attack.
• Responding directly and effectively to racist statements and actions.

Furthermore, we recognize that the founding of the U.S. was via migrations of peoples from Europe and elsewhere, imposing new borders on land already occupied by Indigenous peoples. Today we are seeing increasing migrations of peoples across the world due to violence, stress over resources, and the effects of the climate crisis. We recognize our interconnection with such refugees and migrants as people like ourselves, seeking opportunity and security for their loved ones. Rather than build walls to exclude others, we understand the need to heal the planet and the violence that plagues our nations.

It is only by actively engaging in the dismantling of each of these types of systemic oppression
that we can achieve the truly sustainable and regenerative food and farming systems that we
want and need.

* This language taken from the Land Stewardship Project’s long range plan: Vision for the Future: 5 Year Plan 2019-2024.

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