We have recently completed a project looking at how farmers could open up more democratic land ownership models of their land when they retire. Here Mark looks at how housing provision is a barrier to increasing community ownership through farm succession - the process by which family farmers retire and contemplate selling or inheritance -, and explores the potential for greater collaboration between Community Land Trusts (CLTs) and Agroecological Farmland Trusts (AFTs) to address rural housing needs and bring farmland into community ownership.

When farmers are considering retirement or leaving farming, the two main options for them when considering succession - or the future of their farms - are commercial sale on the open market or passing the property on to their children. Both these models for land transfer sustain dominant and historic models of private land ownership, instead of fostering community land stewardship models that pave the way for a more equitable and regenerative land system.

In the past couple of years Shared Assets has been working with Stir To Action, Ecological Land Cooperative and the Community Supported Agriculture Network on a project funded by Farming the Future, to explore how community ownership models such as AFTs could provide farmers with an alternative to sale or inheritance.

We have recently published a report and a suite of briefing papers which set out:

• the types of financial models in use by Agroecological Farmland Trusts
• the factors that support successful community farmland buyouts, and

how ‘collective enterprise’ - where several different businesses work together on one farm - can create benefits for community-owned farms.

Housing provision

Shared Assets’ focus within this project was to explore how issues of rural housing provision are limiting the expansion of AFTs.

Key issues identified were:

• Difficulties obtaining planning permission for new agricultural dwellings, and the requirement for those seeking permission to live in temporary housing which is often poor quality.

• The models of farming being supported by the trusts tend to be labour intensive and often entail several farm businesses operating on what was once a single family farm, meaning that more housing may be required for one farm than was previously the case for a family farm.

• A retiring farmer who is considering gifting or selling their farm to an AFT may wish to keep the farmhouse in order to provide themselves with a home for their retirement. In other cases there may be a requirement for the farm house to be sold to enable them to purchase a new home elsewhere, or for the benefit of family members.

Taken together these factors create a lack of housing supply which is a barrier to the expansion of the AFT model as a vehicle for family farm succession.

Community Land Trusts for farm succession

Meanwhile there is a thriving sector of CLTs which provide an existing model for the development of community-led housing, including in rural areas.

We brought together representatives of the CLT sector and AFTs to explore how they might work to address the housing barriers to the transfer of farmland from family to community ownership. We identified that AFTs could act as:

• a land provider, making land available to a local CLT who would lead the delivery of new housing on the land,
  
  
• a CLT themselves and work with a housing association to provide the homes on site, and
  
  
• as a registered housing provider themselves, enabling them to access funding for the development of affordable homes on their land.

Whilst CLTs in the UK are most closely associated with housing provision, they also provide a community-led and democratic model for the ownership and management of land for a wide range of other purposes. Shared Assets recently worked with the CLT movement to explore the potential for CLTs to manage more land for food production and nature restoration.

With CLTs exploring how they can manage more land for food production and nature restoration, and the potential for Agroecological Farmland Trusts to start addressing issues of housing provision, there is great potential for closer collaboration between these sectors. This might include the sharing of resources, expertise and data.

Further funding from Farming the Future is enabling Shared Assets and CLT Network to explore this potential. This work, currently underway, includes a workshop next week at Middle Marches CLT in Shropshire to identify the opportunities and barriers for closer joint working to ensure that community ownership models are able to fulfil their potential to act as community-led vehicles for increasing affordable housing, agroecological farming and nature restoration.