Community Land Trusts as a Tool for Land Reparations

By: Jill Reynolds

            Whiteness is embedded in property law. From the groundbreaking law review article, Whiteness as Property, “American law has recognized a property interest in whiteness that, although unacknowledged, now forms the background against which legal disputes are framed, argued, and adjudicated.”[1] As a result of this bias, Black communities have been systemically prevented from acquiring or maintaining land and thus, generational wealth.

Agricultural land is no different. In fact, farmland rests overwhelmingly in white hands. In 1920, Black farmers made up 14% of all producers.[2] Today, Black farmers make up 1.4% of the 3.4 million producers in the country.[3] This is nearly a ninety percent loss.[4] Numerous factors led to Black farmland loss, including institutional discrimination. Much of the institutional discrimination took the form of discriminatory lending. Pigford v. Glickman is the seminal class action lawsuit brought by Black farmers against the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for decades of discriminatory lending practices.[5]

In Pigford, Black farmers brought claims of discriminatory loan practices by the Farmer Service Agency (FSA)––formerly known as the Farmers Home Administration (FHA), the branch of the USDA responsible for administering loans to American farmers. First, USDA “willfully discriminated against them and other similarly situated [Black] farmers on the basis of their race when it denied their applications for credit and/or benefit programs or delayed processing their applications.”[6] Second, when farmers “filed complaints of discrimination… the USDA failed properly to investigate and resolve these complaints.”[7] Pigford resulted in a $1 billion settlement.[8] While historic, this remedy only scratched the surface of addressing harms. Foremost, the payout went only to producers discriminated against between 1982 through 1996.[9] For some, it was already too late.

New Communities Incorporated (New Communities), a Black owned and founded community land trust (CLT), failed due to these discriminatory practices. CLTs are an alternative land access model that prioritizes community ownership and takes land out of the speculative market. A CLT is a nonprofit entity that holds title to land to serve community-oriented interests.[10] Primarily, they exist to serve as long-term, affordable solutions for buying homes and leasing low-cost agricultural land.[11]

The first CLT, New Communities, grew out of the southern civil rights movement in the 1960s in Georgia.[12] The goal was to establish economic and political independence for Black farmers and their families being forced off the land. New Communities bought 5,000 acres of agricultural and forested land in 1970. However, they had to borrow much of the one-million-dollar purchase.[13] Caught in a debt treadmill, all agricultural products produced went towards paying down their debt burden.[14] After successive years of drought and discriminatory lending practices by FHA, New Communities had to sell off a parcel of their land: 1,300 acres.[15] The rest of the land was lost a few years later to foreclosure.[16]

Fortunately, the entity of New Communities never dissolved, and through Pigford they recovered monetary damages.[17] Using the $12 million payout, they purchased the Cyprus Pond Plantation outside Albany, Georgia, a 1600-acre parcel in June of 2011.[18] Despite these setbacks, community land trusts (CLTs) are still a powerful, underutilized legal solution to reclaim lost agricultural land.

Currently, there are few agricultural community land trusts in the U.S. Yet, they offer flexibility for landholders and farmers without much capital. In practice, the CLT holds title to the land and grants ninety-nine-year ground leases to farmers. Farmers are allowed to make improvements to the land, such as building infrastructure and installing irrigation.[19] The farmer then owns these improvements and can sell them when they decide to retire or move on to a new venture.[20] The land itself is held by the CLT and rented out for a low cost.[21] Not only does the agricultural land stay perpetually affordable, but it also allows farmers to adapt to a changing climate and steward their land as they see fit.[22] This arrangement is far more flexible than a conservation easement, which can forbid certain types of improvements to land, often to the detriment of the farmer.[23]

Importantly, a CLT is governed by a tri-partite board. One part is individuals on the land, one part community members, and one part public interest representatives. The democratic style of this governing structure allows for community involvement and community buy-in to the land. While it may be a more challenging model than individual ownership of land, it presents an opportunity for coalition building and political might.

Community land trusts can increase land access for groups historically disadvantaged from land ownership, but they still require institutional support. Until other funding structures fill in the gaps, it is crucial to prevent discriminatory lending practices to allow for equal access to land. Institutional funders should prioritize socially disadvantaged groups and conduct outreach into these communities. Community-based lawyers can assist in facilitating outreach and be on alert for discriminatory practices. Advocacy groups can call farmers in and call injustices out. On stolen land, everyone has a role to play in reparations.

[1] Cheryl I. Harris, Whiteness as Property, 106 Harv. L. Rev. 1707, 1713-14 (1993).

[2] Black Producers, USDA NASS, https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Highlights/2019/2017Census_Black_Producers.pdf (last visited Sept. 19, 2025).

[3] Id.

[4] Tom Philpott, White People Own 98% of Rural Land, Grist, (June 20, 2020), https://grist.org/justice/white-people-own-98-of-rural-land-young-black-farmers-want-to-reclaim-their-share .

[5] Pigford v. Glickman, 185 F.R.D. 82 (D.D.C. 1999) aff’d 206 F.3d 1212 (D.C. Cir. 2000), and enforcement denied sub nom. Pigford v. Schafer, 536 F. Supp. 2d 1 (D.D.C. 2008).

[6] Id. at 86.

[7] Id.

[8] The Pigford Cases: USDA Settlement of Discrimination Suits by Black Farmers, Cong Rsch Serv., https://nationalaglawcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/assets/crs/RS20430.pdf (last visited Oct. 6, 2025).

[9] Id.

[10] What is a Community Land Trust?, Int’l. Ctr. for Cmty. Land Tr.s, https://www.cltweb.org/resources/what-is-a-community-land-trust  (last visited Sept. 19, 2025).

[11] Id.

[12] New Communities, Int’l. Ctr. for Cmty. Land Tr.s, https://www.cltweb.org/resources/clt-case-studies/new-communities  (last visited Oct. 6, 2025).

[13] Id.

[14] Id.

[15] Id.

[16] Id.

[17] New Communities, Int’l. Ctr. for Cmty. Land Tr.s, https://www.cltweb.org/resources/clt-case-studies/new-communities  (last visited Oct. 6, 2025).

[18] Id.

[19] Land Trusts, Ctr. for Agric. and Food Sys., https://farmlandaccess.org/land-trusts  (last visited Oct. 6, 2025)

[20] Id.

[21] Id.

[22] Id.

[23] Conservation Easements, Ctr. for Agric. and Food Sys., https://farmlandaccess.org/conservation-easements (last visited Oct. 6, 2025).