NORTHFIELD, Minn. —A culturally relevant “Land Access: Are You Ready?” workshop will be held for Spanish-speaking beginning and aspiring farmers Saturday, April 27, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., at Emmaus Baptist Church, 712 Linden St. N., in Northfield. This Land Stewardship Project (LSP) workshop is free; materials, lunch and childcare are provided. To register by April 24 or for more information, contact LSP’s Alondra Cano at latierra@landstewardshipproject.org or Karen Stettler at stettler@landstewardshipproject.org. LSP will also be holding Spanish-language “Introduction to Farmland Access” workshops via Zoom April 14 and 18. To register for those workshops, contact Cano or Stettler.
The April 27 workshop is for underrepresented farmers and aspiring farmers who are looking to rent or buy farmland or are looking to work with another farmer to get started farming. This workshop will provide strategies, tools and participatory activities to get people started on their land access journey. Participants will have a chance to hear directly from Latino farmers about the methods they have used to secure land tenure. In addition, guest speakers from the Latino Economic Development Center, the USDA Farm Service Agency and the Minnesota Department of Agriculture will be on-hand to share valuable resources about farm financing options.
Minnesota’s Latino community makes up one of our state’s largest minority groups. Yet, out of the 67,400 farms that exist in Minnesota, only 583 of them are owned by Latinos. This workshop is meant to address both the labor-to-ownership imbalance and racial inequity embedded within our agricultural system. LSP believes that addressing this lack of land access for Latinos is key to realizing our community’s goals of creating more resilient and sustainable food systems.
“Even though Spanish-speaking families play a vital role in providing our nation with food security, they are severely underrepresented in ownership of the land that they labor on,” said Cano. “This workshop fills a pressing need to empower our Spanish-speaking community members to take the next steps in becoming farm owners and land stewards on their own terms.”
This workshop is partially funded by a Minnesota Department of Agriculture grant.
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The Land Stewardship Project (LSP) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering an ethic of stewardship for farmland, promoting sustainable agriculture and developing healthy communities in the food and farming system. LSP has offices in the Minnesota communities of Montevideo, Lewiston and South Minneapolis.