At Finca Las Perdices in Ciales, Puerto Rico, a quiet transformation is underway. In 2023, the 31-acre farm became the first piece of land in Puerto Rico protected under an agricultural commons.
Landowners José Colón López and Nélida Agosto Cintrón donated their land to the Fideicomiso de Tierras Comunitarias para la Agricultura Sostenible (Community Land Trust for Sustainable Agriculture), known as FiTiCAS. FiTiCAS works to secure farmland in Puerto Rico so that new generations of farmers can strengthen local food security and sovereignty through agroecological practices.
They propose to do this by acquiring farmland and holding it in commons, a community-centered approach to landholding and land governance aimed at providing long-term tenure for farmers who cannot afford to buy land outright.
The core concept of commons is nearly as old as agriculture itself. Societies around the globe, from Indigenous peoples of the Americas to medieval Europeans, have practiced collective land stewardship to grow food and manage natural resources. In a modern commons, farmland is removed from the speculative market and placed into a community-governed structure, protected for agricultural use.
“For us, commoning is a process of reestablishing a different relationship to land based on collective ownership,” says FiTiCAS co-founder and Executive Director Mariolga Reyes Cruz. “We’re envisioning a future where land is protected in perpetuity so multiple generations can have access to land and steward it for the next generations.”
From commodity to commons
FiTiCAS is part of a growing movement promoting land commons as a response to the growing challenges of farmland loss, generational turnover, and barriers to land access.
The average U.S. farmer is over 58 years old, and more than 400 million acres — over 40% of farmland — is expected to change hands by 2030. Without heirs or affordable retirement options, many farmers see no option but to sell to the highest bidder, who are often developers or corporations with no intention of keeping the land in agriculture. With roughly 2,000 acres of farmland being lost to development every day and land prices at record highs, access to affordable land remains the top challenge for young and beginning farmers, especially Black, Indigenous, and other farmers of color.
Commons offer an alternative path, one that bypasses the land-as-commodity market to bridge the gap from one generation of farmers to the next.
Here’s how it works: a group of community stakeholders form a nonprofit entity designed to buy or receive donations of land and hold title to that land in perpetuity. Like in a conservation land trust or community land trust, this prevents the land from being sold. Without speculative market pressure to drive up rents, the commons can set affordable long-term leases (often 99-year leases or as long as their state allows), giving the leaseholder secure tenure to live and farm on the land. The commons is governed by a board of nonprofit and community stakeholders, including the farmer leaseholder(s), who together adopt governing values, establish land stewardship standards, and set equitable lease terms.
Moving land outside of private ownership requires creative legal structures to ensure protection under existing law. There are a handful of different legal structures communities can choose from to achieve this, including 501(c)(2), 501(c)(25), or 501(c)(3) nonprofit entities. The right choice of commons entity depends on the context of the local community, but the underlying goal remains the same: to offer an affordable pathway to long-term land security while protecting the land for future generations.
It’s important to note that holding land in common is not the same as collective use. A commons is not the same as a cooperative, though it can be structured as one if desired. Under most models, land is leased to a single farmer or farm family, or split up into parcels that each function as independent enterprises. Each farmer still has the autonomy to operate their own farm business and make key management decisions, provided those decisions align with agreed-upon stewardship principles.
While the legal structure provides stability, it also allows flexibility for the vision and impact to be truly community-driven. Working within the basic commons framework, farmers and board members can work together to tailor land-use agreements and farm management plans based on the needs and goals of the local community. This could mean committing to care for the land through regenerative practices or habitat protection, nurturing future farmers by hosting educational events or farmer incubators, or fostering equity and economic empowerment by launching local enterprises, growing culturally important crops, or providing space for community connection.
Creating a commons
The process of creating a commons looks different in every community. In most cases, it takes time to assemble the right stakeholders, farmers, and land availability for the commons to succeed.
Femeika Elliot and Laila Malik are both food justice advocates at Rooted East, a community-led collective combating food apartheid in East Knoxville, Tennessee. They are also founding board members of the East Tennessee Community, Housing, & Farmland Commons. Rooted East works to create a self-sufficient food system for East Knoxville’s majority Black community through community garden initiatives, gardening education, and skills training.
“What we’ve noticed over the last three years of working with this community is that people are ready for kind of the next step, for leveling up their game from home gardeners to small-scale market producers,” says Malik. Unfortunately, over half of the participants in Rooted East’s programs are renters, and even those who own their homes don’t have enough land for viable farming. So when Elliott encountered the idea of commons at the 2022 Tennessee Local Food Summit, it seemed like the perfect solution.
Their initiative is one of seven commons formed in partnership with The Farmers Land Trust, a national nonprofit organization advancing a particular commons structure they call the Farmland Commons. Their website is a treasure trove of templates and guidance on the complex legal process of establishing a commons.
In this model, three to 35 nonprofit organizations pool resources through a 501(c)(25), which is an IRS-designated entity dedicated solely to holding property.
“Collaboration and sustainability are very much core to the organization that we’ve created,” says Kristina Villa, Co-founder and Co-Executive Director of The Farmers Land Trust along with Ian McSweeney. “The 501(c)(25) structure brings together multiple nonprofits to co-own and share the power of land collectively. That aids in the resiliency and sustainability of the organization, because if one of these nonprofit partners were to dissolve or go away or change mission, then the other ones are still there to hold that land and support that farmer into the long term.”
Because the 501(c)(25) entity is legally restricted to holding land, it cannot be involved in the farm’s actual business operations or day-to-day decision-making. This is an advantage, Villa says, because “it’s what gives that lease-holding farmer, legally, the most autonomy and independence on the land as possible.”
After making contact with The Farmers Land Trust, Elliot began the work of assembling the team of nonprofits, community leaders, and food and housing justice champions who would become the eventual board of the East Tennessee Farmland Commons. Rooted East already had strong relationships in the community through engagement in mutual aid efforts, but it still took time to get to know everyone, build trust, and agree upon shared values for the commons. From there, the stakeholders worked to establish shared agreements and bylaws, select board members, and incorporate the commons with the state. Right now, the collective is working to finalize model leases and soon will begin the process of land acquisition. Altogether, the process has taken about two years.
The complex legal process of creating a commons requires patience, says Villa, as well as an understanding that you won’t be able to compete on the same time scale as the real estate market. “These land transitions, they do take time, and so when a landowner gets to the point where they need to sell right now for a certain amount of money, that is not going to work for us,” she says. That’s why it’s important for landowners seeking to preserve their farms to plan ahead and start having succession conversations with their family. These conversations may be uncomfortable, but they ensure there will be enough time to secure a lasting legacy for future generations.
From the ground up
Across the state border from Rooted East and their collaborators, another commons is working to help farmers of color flourish. For the Central Virginia Agrarian Commons, it began with a gift of land.
When Callie Walker inherited some of her father’s land in Amelia County, Virginia, her vision for the land was always to serve the community. After the United Methodist pastor and her husband learned about commons at a conference presentation by Agrarian Trust, they decided the best way to achieve that vision for the land was to give it away.
Agrarian Trust pioneered the concept of commons in the United States, helping a dozen communities nationwide establish Agrarian Commons. Agrarian Trust provides technical support to guide grassroots organizations through the process of choosing the right legal framework for their context and completing all the proper paperwork to hold land securely in common. They also play the all-important role of connecting farmers and organizations with the land and resources they need.
“The reason why Agrarian Trust exists is to channel philanthropic capital down to grassroots agrarian movements,” says Nathan Galaviz, Commons Manager at Agrarian Trust. “It is our ability to acquire land, receive donations, and get upstream of this land that is barreling towards development pressure.”
With Agrarian Trust’s support, Walker donated 72 acres to the newly formed Central Virginia Agrarian Commons. Governed by a board of experienced local growers and food justice leaders, the CVAC aspires to support BIPOC access to land and resilient regional food systems, cultivated through an interconnected network of urban and rural farmers of color.
CVAC board member Renard Turner sees the commons as a potential path to help reverse the crisis of Black land loss and dispossession. He describes farming as “liberation” and hopes to see the farm become “a living, working model” for Black vocational farming.
Walker views the formation of the commons as an act of reparative justice, a step towards healing the land’s plantation history. “When we made this decision, I had this feeling like the land was breathing a sigh of relief,” she says. “I believe that I have done right by the land.”
Galaviz says this same dedication to right relationship with the land has driven dozens of values-aligned landowners to reach out to Agrarian Trust over the years. “For them, the key word is legacy,” he says. Landowners who have invested their life’s work and savings into regenerative or ecological stewardship want to pass their farms to the next generation of farmers rather than sell to someone who wouldn’t honor that legacy.
Various Agrarian Commons and Farmland Commons have used different agreements to ensure an equitable transition for outgoing landowners. Landowners can sell at a bargain rate and receive a charitable tax deduction for the donated portion, utilize seller financing to contribute to retirement income, or retain a life estate or leaseback arrangement so that they can live the rest of their lives in their family home or continue farming on a portion of the land as it transitions to a successor. Customized arrangements allow farmers to retire with dignity while carrying on their legacy for the next generation.
This attitude from landowners is echoed in Puerto Rico, where FiTiCAS recently ran an online educational campaign about commons. Since the campaign wrapped, Reyes Cruz says that over 200 landowners and potential allies have approached FiTiCAS. “The response has been overwhelming,” she says. “It just shows that people really do want to be part of alternatives that take care of everybody, that take care of people and take care of the land.”
Land justice is community justice
Across these examples, one lesson stands out: commons only work through community.
“Community is going to be what saves us, and being in community, and knowing how to be an active community member is going to be what sustains us,” says Femeika Elliot of Rooted East. “And so it’s a constant practical skill that you have to exercise — it’s like a muscle. You literally have to work it out.”
Commons bring together people with different goals and motivations, so it’s essential to establish shared values and principles alongside clearly defined roles, norms, and expectations. Consider building conflict-resolution protocols into your bylaws or guiding documents, and remember that it’s okay not to be in perfect agreement all the time, as long as you understand how to collaborate towards a workable solution.
Experts recommend working with an attorney who can ensure the commons structure adheres to state laws and can help work through local issues like zoning. Also consider building a diverse board that includes a variety of perspectives, personalities, and skillsets, including legal and financial expertise.
For Elliot, the commons approach shifts the focus from ownership to relationship — treating land not as a possession, but as a partner in justice, regeneration, and shared responsibility. “It’s about reshaping how we show up in relationship with the land and its people,” she says. “Repair begins when we act with humility, shared power, and remembering that land justice is community justice.”
With patience, collaboration, and care, agricultural commons offer a pathway to protect farmland — and the people who steward it — for generations to come.
Kara Hoving is a writer and policy advocate specializing in sustainable food systems and climate change communication. She helps nonprofits tell solutions-based stories that build momentum for positive change.