Commons Land Community

From 2021 to 2025, the average cost of cropland in Minnesota has nearly doubled. 

If you care about a future for farmers in Minnesota, please consider being a part of our work by supporting Commons Land this Give to the Max Day. We welcome contributions of any amount to meet our goal of raising $20,000. 

Commons Land works to steward community-held farmland to offer permanent access, affordability, and secure equity building for emerging and BIPOC farmers in Minnesota. Our vision includes many clusters of farms across Minnesota, building our collective power as we transition land from a commodity to a community resource.

These funds will support people— community stakeholders, organizers, and farmers— doing the work required to organize the future we envision together.

Your gift will support: 

• Stipends and honorariums for farmer organizing in cluster development, working groups, advisory roles;

• Popular education and trainings with farmer communities on Community Land Trusts, commons, and cooperative development;

• Building a Land Fund to further the transition of privately-owned lands into community ownership.

Any amount counts! Thank you for supporting Commons Land on Give to the Max Day. 

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About Commons Land 

Commons Land is a regional community land trust with a unique purpose and focus on using a commons-based approach to acquiring, stewarding and permanently protecting clusters of farmland. Commons Land reanimates a centuries-old practice of commoning: people working together to share, steward, and sustain land for the collective good. Across cultures and time, the commons model has always meant reciprocity, shared responsibility, and governance by those directly connected to the land. 

We use the legal structure of a Community Land Trust (CLT) to hold farmland in perpetuity for community benefit. CLTs separate ownership of land from its use, making it possible for farmers, especially those historically excluded from ownership, to build livelihoods without the burden of land debt. Long-term ground leases ensure affordability, stability, and ongoing community governance. Common Land’s model redefines wealth and relationship to land - not as possession, but as shared stability, health, and belonging. 

In a state defined by both agricultural wealth and racialized land exclusion, Commons Land brings a locally-rooted, regionally-connected, and environmental-justice focused model. Clusters of farmers across Minnesota are organizing around shared economies, ecological repair, and cross-cultural collaboration. Each “commons cluster” grounds this vision in place: building community wealth and land stewardship with reciprocity and trust.

Our mission is to co-create and steward community farm commons in communities supporting equitable, healthy food systems across Minnesota and neighboring states. Commons Land serves as a regional conservation land trust with a unique purpose and focus on a commons-based approach to acquiring, stewarding and permanently protecting clusters of farmland. We focus on addressing structural inequities in agriculture by ensuring that good farmland is available and affordable to farmers of all backgrounds, prioritizing Black, Indigenous, Latinx/e, Asian, queer, and low-income white emerging farmers who have traditionally been marginalized from owning their own farms.

Goals of Our Work: 

• Provide secure, affordable access to community-held, community-stewarded land for farmers and land stewards; 
• Support, advise and advocate for partner organizations in our region seeking to create their own networks of community-held, community-stewarded farmland commons. 
• Educate and support the capacity of farmers, communities, nonprofits, and other partners to build community wealth, cross-cultural competency with farmland commons practices, and related technical assistance.

Please consider donating to Commons Land this Give to the Max Day!