Our farm is entering 41 years of exploring the ethical stewardship of place – seeking deeper knowledge of integrated levels of life, from soil underfoot to the heavens. We have always sought harmony with that life, operating with the best intentions to foster health, community, and whole-mind relationships. Over our time here, we have become a group of farmers integrated with a deep ecology of this specific place. Native elders speak and think in terms of seven generations. We are but beginners at learning that mindset and the practices that allow us deep relationships here; we have so far to go.
At what point does one begin to cultivate a Native Mind? This question is at the heart of our journey. The answer starts with our relationship with the plants that we harvest to fill your plates: seeding just so, watering mindfully, weeding patiently, and cultivating the microbes in, on, and under those plants to feed their needs. It continues with our farm community, which is primarily comprised of those who labor here day in and day out. The farmers.
We feel strongly that we need to drop the distinction between owners and those who receive a paycheck as farmers and farmworkers. Most all our hardworking crew were farmers in their country of origin. Crossing the border created the distinction. Most have expressed their care for this land over many years by irrigating, picking and packing, or by planting and tending crop seedlings. As they become deeply connected here, it is clear that they are as integral to the whole as are soil or sun. Our farm would not work without them. They have every right to be seen as farmers here.
Yet, to have financial security and family security these days it is important that a primary tool for creating such security – purchasing a home – be extended to these farmers. Housing in our area has become prohibitively expensive and out of the reach of beginning buyers and middle-income people. The scarcity of affordable housing relegates our crew, who work here year-round, into the position of being perpetual renters. We are now asking the question of how we look at homeownership through new lenses.
We have nearly 80 full-time, year-round farmers here at the farm. Over the past 40 years, we have helped eight farm families buy houses nearby. The process has been different with each transaction. We have purchased property and repaired it and sold it to a farmworker (farmer) family. In other instances, we have helped to negotiate the deal between families and a seller. We have been able to provide some bridge funding as the deal was negotiated. We have written purchase contracts and have been an intermediary to writing the terms of those contracts.
Our focus now is to provide a helping hand to acquire and hold an affordable home, turning renters into holders of equity in a home and therefore gaining an ability to build family wealth. By aggregating the rents paid by multiple families, we will have a better ability to finance the purchase of a property.
If new thinking is needed to make housing affordable, then new tools are important. Perhaps to be affordable, the land underlying the housing that is being purchased by the farmer needs to go off the market and have a guarantee that the tenancy of the housing will be farmers in perpetuity. Think land ownership held by a community land trust in the public interest of affordability and proscribed use by farmers. Perhaps if there is no fluctuation in land values under the houses, a contract can be written to control appreciation so that cashing out of a home is a mechanism to extract one’s equity; a slower-growing equity, but much of what would have been lost as a renter.
I have been working with a small group up here in the Capay Valley and with a group of our farmers to develop tools needed to purchase a property across the road from Full Belly. These 43 acres have two existing, quality homes. The land would be available to farm by owners of the housing on the property. This property would also have four 3-bedroom homes. So, we have been putting the pieces in place to purchase the land and improvements; have a community land trust hold the property and place an easement on the land; and raise construction capital to build the four houses. The property would have housing for up to seven farm families.
This would not be a Full Belly purchase; we don’t have that capacity. We are looking for a new model to make this a community purchase. By taking the land off the market for all future transactions, we can guarantee tenancy by farmers, we can control appreciation of the homes, and we can build affordability for the first generation of farmers and for the next generation if the home is sold in the future – with a proscribed sale to qualified farmers. Improvements to the outbuildings can be made with a combination of self-help construction and low-interest loans.
By being proximate to Full Belly, our farm can act as support for beginning farm operations. We have equipment to use, knowledge and support close at hand, and help with marketing. The interested farm families who are talking through the details of this project have been farmers here for many years. They know our area’s climate, resources, and limitations, and have the experience to know what grows well here. This knowledge offers a better recipe for success by focusing on workers who are already working together and who have been farming here for years.
This won’t be easy, but we have many pieces in place. We have a fiscal sponsor to hold project funds. We have a builder, interested architect, project manager, and we have been cultivating relationships with interested funders. We have been developing the MOU’s with qualified Community Land Trusts. There is a group that has volunteered time to make this project real. We have some leaders in the Hispanic community, who know housing, as advisors to our interested farmers. We have a company (Dirt Capital) who would purchase the property. We just need a strategy to pay them back.
At this point, we are looking to crowdfunding for a small part. State and county governments are interested in the model and are promising some funds. There are many groups and funders who are working in the arena of affordable housing for underserved communities who are excited to support and help make the project a reality. This is a new tool for housing affordability that goes a step further than equity housing by guaranteeing controlled appreciation and affordability to the next purchaser.
When completed, this project, which we are calling “Casas Capay Valley,” will offer a template for other farmers to develop equity housing on their land using a community land trust as the common. We are looking for interested friends of our farm to help raise funds.
So, we need your help!
We are looking to you for new ideas or leads to interested funders. We are hoping to bridge the idea of this land purchase as a community purchase- where the land is held for all of us to assure that those who work the fields have security and an equity stake in that land.
Let me know if you are interested in helping or have ideas of those to whom we might present this idea. We see these new tools holding great potential to help farmers to become more native to the place they have contributed to for years.
You can view our project plan here. To make a donation now to Casas Capay Valley, please visit the donation page of our fiscal sponsor, Occidental Arts and Ecology Center. Check the box to make a ‘Donation Dedication,” click “In Honor Of,” and enter “Casas Capay Valley.”
With your help, we can make this happen.
Blessings on your meals, Paul
