Black Family Land Trust

Author: Rubaba Azad

Short Summary

The Black Family Land Trust (BFLT) works to empower and protect landowners while creating employment opportunities and wealth in the country. The initiative was created by forty diverse individuals of African American farmers, landowners, community development practitioners, land conservationists, and academicians across the Southeastern United States. The BFLT utilizes the core principles of land conservation and land-based community economic development to achieve their goals.

Website address: https://www.bflt.org/

Location: North Carolina, USA

Executive Director: Ebonie Alexander

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Profile

BFLT primarily operates in the southeastern United States, improving the quality of life of landowners by giving them the tools necessary to make informed, positive decisions about their land and its use.

BFLT’s working philosophy is as follows: “We honor the legacy of those stewards of the land that came before us and have faith in those stewards of the land that will come after us” (source).

In addition, BFLT programs reduce employment gaps, protect land ownership, and create wealth in rural areas. The Black Family Land Trust is run by its Board of Directors and staff.

YOUTUBE FdCHP9Y1jOY "Ebonie Alexander of the Black Family Land Trust talking about the importance of legacy planning, connecting to the land, and an overview of the important work that the Black Family Land Trust engages in."

Projects

  • Term Easement: Helps family members to repurchase their family-owned farmland by deciding on long-term conservation strategy in order to maintain the farm in a state of agricultural use. Most importantly, it offers “peace of mind” in knowing that family member’s land is protected and taken back and the predecessors' wishes are being honored.
  • Conservation Easements: An asset-protection strategy used by landowners to protect particular parcels of agricultural land, forestland, waterways, and/or grassland. It is a voluntary agreement and easements are designed to be flexible to meet the needs of landowners.
  • Wealth Retention and Asset Protection (WRAP) program: A program designed to minimize the rate of African-American and other historically underserved populations’ land loss by educating landowners about estate planning, financial management, conservation easements, and the new options available to them in the 21st century.

Friends & Partners

  • Laughing Gull Foundation
  • USDA National Resources Conservation Services (NRCS)
  • Virginia Department of Forestry, Farm Service Agency (FSA)
  • American Forest Foundation
  • Conservation Trust for North Carolina
  • Cleanwater Management Trust Fund
  • Southern University Law Center
  • North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University
  • The Greater Good Foundation
  • Land Loss Prevention
  • Livingstone College
  • American Farmland Trust
  • Center for Social Inclusion
  • Virginia State
  • Cleveland County Community Development Corporation
  • North Carolina Trust Fund
  • Center for Heirs’ Property Prevention
  • Landowners and farmers

Finances

They receive funding through donations.

Origin Story

Black Family Land Trust, Inc. (BFLT) incorporated in North Carolina in 2004. The idea of establishing BFLT came in early fall 2002 when forty diverse individuals gathered for two days in Salter Path that is located in North Carolina to explore creating a new organization. The individuals attending this gathering agreed that a Black Family Land Trust would be the precise vehicle, and its mission would be ensuring, protecting, and preserving African-American-owned lands.

See Also

  • Black Urban Growers (BUGs): Established in 2010 and committed to building networks and community support for growers in both urban and rural settings, BUGs advances visions of recuperation, reciprocity, and representation that impact the health and economic sustainability of land-based stewards.
  • Black Farmer Fund: Two black farmer-activists who met at a conference in 2017 believed that there needed to be a means for community members to access capital that recognized the historical discrimination of lending and banking the present reality of black communities. Today, the mission of Black Farmer Fund is to nurture black community wealth and health by investing in black agricultural systems in the Northeast.
  • Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance (NAFSA): An organization dedicated to restoring the food systems that support indigenous self-determination, wellness, cultures, values, communities, economies, languages, and families while rebuilding relationships with the land, water, plants, and animals that sustain us. NAFSA works to put farmers, wild-crafters, hunters, ranchers, fishers, and eaters at the center of decision-making regarding policies, strategies, and natural resource management.

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