What are those Scots up to?

I apologize to those I have kept waiting on tenterhooks for the next installment of the Radical Land Tenure series; illness has severely curtailed my energy. But I have dragged myself out of bed to tell you about Scotland, because it is really just so cool. Now, actual Scots are welcome to comment and agree or disagree; I'm going by the literature, here.

Until very recently, the Scottish system of land ownership was literally feudal, with the concentration of land ownership amongst the rich that one would expect. In the Highland Clearances of the 1700s and 1800s, rural tenant farmers were forcibly displaced from their small plots to make room for sheep and later sport hunting. These farmers ended up concentrated in the outlying and less desirable parts of estates in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, where there are 30,000 of them today on 7% of Scotland's total land area.

Because of this history, as of 1996, and perhaps yet today, Scotland had the “most concentrated pattern of large scale private ownership of any country in the world” (Wightman, 2004: 3). (Two-thirds of this land is owned by 1252 landowners - 0.025% of the population - in large estates. One quarter of the privately owned rural land is in estates of 30,700 acres and larger, owned by just 66 landowners.). Many landowners were (and are) renowned for their neglect, paternalism, and iron-fisted control over the land and any changes or developments to be made to it. The feudal system of land tenure was only abolished in an Act of Parliament in 2000. Scotland is in many ways in a post-colonial situation.

In 1993, the crofters of Assynt took a historic step, coming together as the Assynt Crofters Trust to purchase the 21,000 acre estate on which they were tenants from a bankrupt Swedish land speculation company. This stimulated land reform in Scotland and became emblematic of the “social sector” in land ownership. Further community land purchases followed, and in 2003 the Scottish Parliament introduced the Land Reform Act. This Act granted rural communities in Scotland the right of ‘first refusal’ on the sale of estates and granted crofting communities the right to buy their croftlands on a collective basis, even over the objections of land owners. At a time when Canadian farmers are encouraged to lease land from investment companies, Scottish communities are becoming owners. As of 2009, some two hundred groups have been helped to achieve buy-outs by the Scottish Government’s Community Land Unit. More than two percent of the nation’s land—a third of a million acres—is now under such ownership.

Individual crofts (small farms) are typically established on about 5 hectares of “in-bye” for better quality forage, arable and vegetable production. Each township traditionally manages poorer quality hill ground as common grazing for cattle and sheep. Because of the poor quality of this land, crofters traditionally rely on income from other activities in addition to agriculture.

Community buyouts take different forms: they form or use a democratic body to represent the community and then usually make a company that owns and manages the property on behalf of the community. Other ones may share control over the land with partners such as conservation organizations (community partnerships as in Eigg) or sometimes it's only crofters that purchase (crofting trusts). Communities get all the security and rights of conventional land ownership under Scots law (unless under easements for example, or charitable status). Crofters still lease their inbye land, but they lease it from the community organization, that also owns the common land. Other than whole estates, community property includes community facilities, heritage assets, economic resources such as wind turbines. Community ownership allows diversifying croft activities that require collective action: developing horticulture, sheep's wool for house insulation, stock clubs, planting trees, sensitive tourism, or a small hydro scheme as in Assynt.

There's a variety of ways to obtain the purchase price of land. Funding for community buyouts is available through National Lottery money in Scottish Land Fund, as well as other grants such as those the Highlands and Islands Development Corporation provides. Some money comes from the purchasing community, other from donations and loans. Community ownership has many potential benefits. It can provide greater security allowing people to plan for the future, greater freedom to use assets, facilitate access to greater funding, encourage social networking, allow profit to be retained in community, promote community cohesion and pride, provide greater transparency and accountability in decision making.

Because this system involves community development, it speaks to the issue not just of land reform – everyone being able to access an equitable share - but agrarian reform. It recognizes that, as Borras and Franco say, “while land redistribution is the 'heart' of agrarian reform, post-land (re)distribution support service packages and favourable rural development policies are the 'soul” (2010: 114).

There seems to be an attitude towards land and rural development on part of the Scottish government that is very different from that of neoliberal governments in Canada. The government justifies intervention in the land market/private property rights on the grounds of social justice, capture of economic opportunity, population retention and self-determination (Brown 2007). This helps convey the moral authority that communities need for feasible ownership. So does the ethic of community rights trumping individual rights that is rooted in Highland culture. It seems to be recognized in Scotland that the land tenure system doesn't just affect usage, and doesn't even just affect economic factors such as the labour skills of the population or access to employment and thus migration, but the social structure; and the distribution of power and influence.

There is debate within the crofting movement regarding private ownership, though. The 2007 Committee of Inquiry on Crofting found that there was division over the fundamental question of whether, with the cessation of feudal tenure, a croft is an individual/family asset, to be bought and sold freely, or a wider social and cultural asset, for generations now and in the future. Thus far, the weight is on the latter side with those who see crofting not just as an economic asset/means but as a social, cultural, environmental, and agricultural practice that is collectively beneficial, and threatened by an open market in crofts. That putting crofts on the open market would eventually mean the demise of crofting is acknowledged by the proponents of that market.

The collective vs the individual. We've seen this many times in agriculture here, and will no doubt see it again. Which way do you think we are trending? 

References:

Borras, S. (Jr.) & Franco, J. (2010). Food sovereignty and redistributive land policies: Exploring linkages, identifying challenges. In H. Wittman, A. Al Desmarais, & N. Wiebe (Eds.), Food sovereignty: International perspectives on theory and practice. Nova Scotia: Fernwood Publishing.

Brown, Katrina. 2007. Understanding the materialities and moralities of property: reworking collective claims to land. Journal compilation: Royal Geographical Society (with The Institute of British Geographers.

Bryden, John and Charles Geisler. 2007. Community-based land reform: Lessons from Scotland. Land Use Policy (24), 24–34

Chenevix-Trench, Hamish and Philip, Lorna J.(2001) 'Community and conservation land ownership in

highland Scotland: A common focus in a changing context', Scottish Geographical Journal, 117: 2, 139 — 156.

Mackenzie, Fiona. 2010. A common claim: community land ownership in the Outer

Hebrides, Scotland. International Journal of the Commons, 4: 1, 319–344.

Shucksmith, M. Committee of Inquiry on Crofting: Final Report. 2008. Available at http://www.ecology.ethz.ch/education/BE_documents/Crofting_final_report.pdf

Wightman, A. 2004. Common Land in Scotland: A Brief Overview. Available at http://www.scottishcommons.org/docs/commonweal_3.pdf

Radical or not?

On another blog I sometimes comment on, I was recently very gently accused of being "radical" and "anti-private property" by someone who surveyed the posts on this blog. I think there's a little more nuance needed here, so let me explain myself.

First, let me say that I embrace the term "radical" in its etymological sense of "going to the root" of something. Yes, I have radical views. I am not satisfied with explanations or solutions that scratch the surface of issues. I also like to look at the historical and cultural contexts of ideas. Relating to this, then, I wouldn't say I'm "anti-private property." I'm not keen on sharing my underwear with anyone else. I am, however, against the commodification of land. I do not think access to land should be determined solely by ability to pay. And I think community ownership and commons should be more widespread.

Historically, the idea of land as private property that was bequeathed upon North America is only a few hundred years old. It was by no means a "natural" progression, even if one does believe in a teleological notion of history. It stems from the British enclosures, a centuries-long process with two thrusts: changing and consolidating open-field systems to enclosed fields owned by individual farmers, and eliminating rural peoples' use rights to common and waste land.

In this process, many farmers were robbed of land – their means of production/reproduction – and the feudal guarantees of security they once had. Enclosure changed land from a life-support system to a commodity to be owned and exploited for private profit. And it did not happen smoothly or easily; generations of people resisted, were killed, were impoverished.

Prior to the enclosures in Britain, there were complicated rights and obligations of various resource users. For example, villagers often had the right to collect fuel from uncultivated land, and pasture animals on common land – all subject to local and frequent negotiations. The enclosures appropriated the commons, and took those various rights and bundled them all together and gave them to the owner of the ground.

This “dominium plenum” (total lordship) way of thinking about property is “common sense” to us today. The owner has a right to use his/her property; it is wrong for all non-owners to interfere with the owner in his/her use of it, and non-owners may use the property of the owner if and only if the owner gives permission. The owner has also transference rights. There are rules in place to punish non-owner interference, regulate cases of damage and liability. (This is more complicated, since rights can variously be permanent, temporary, absolute, exclusive, transferable or nontransferable, etc. One small example: the state retains the right to expropriate land for a highway)

Although private property is dominant in Canada, there are other ways of organizing ownership in natural resources, such as land or water, today. The suggestion that land should not be treated as a commodity is admittedly fairly radical in North America, outside of the land trust movement. But it isn't just an idea relegated to those heathens in the Global South who have not received the enlightenment of capitalism in all its glory. There are two examples from northern Europe - Norway and Scotland - that could teach us a thing or two.

Norway has extensive areas of land owned in common, basically governed by the same legislation since the 12th century. There are three types: farm, community, and state commons. In the case of farm commons, a farm usually holds infields privately and the outer uncultivated lands, for timber, grazing, hunting, fishing etc., are held jointly with other farms. More than 50,000 farms had shares in jointly owned land in 1986. Community commons also exist – their profits (under law) must first be used to secure and improve the commons, then can be used for developing more industry, activities, and community projects such as hydroelectric power generation. Thus, lots of resources go back into the local community.

This type of ownership is possible because property rights are not unified, but more like a “bundle” of rights which may be parcelled out to different owners. This is called resource-specific property rights. For different types of resources there are different rules regulating who has access to the resource, how regulations of use come about, and how it can be transferred to any successors. The ground-owner and the user/owner of a specific resource are often different persons. On joint farmland, for example, one farm may own timber rights to coniferous trees, another a certain percentage of grazing rights. These rights are negotiable between parties and local solutions are more easily arrived at. Note that I said the farm owns: in Norway the right to use the farm commons is attached to a particular property rather than a person. This was intended to keep farmland in the hands of farmers.

Is this possible here in Canada? Or perhaps a form of community ownership, being undertaken in Scotland, is more appealing? I'll go into that example in the next post.

Further reading:

Sevatdal, Hans and Sidsel Grimstad. 2003. Norwegian Commons: History, Status and Challenges. Landscape, Law & Justice: Proceedings from a workshop on old and new commons, Centre for Advanced Study, Oslo, 11-13 March 2003. Available at: http://en.scientificcommons.org/23009437

Berge, Erling. 2002. Varieties of property rights to nature – some observations on landholding and ownership in Norway and England. In Schmithüsen, F.; Iselin, G.; Herbst, P., Eds. Forest Law and Environmental Legislation – Contributions of the IUFRO Research Group. Available at www.gbv.de/dms/goettingen/373216394.pdf 

  

Berge, Erling and Hans Sevatdal. 1993. Some notes on the terminology of Norwegian property rights law in relation to social science concepts about property rights regimes. Revised version of a paper presented to the IV. World Conference of IASCP, Manilla, 15-19 June 1993. 

  

Goodale, Mark and Per Sky. 2001. A comparative study of land tenure, property boundaries, and dispute resolution: Examples from Bolivia and Norway. Journal of Rural Studies, Volume 17, Issue 2, 183-200

I have in my hands an advance copy of the book "Food Sovereignty in Canada" put out by Fernwood Publishing.  I am very proud! I would tell you exactly what I did for this book, but then my thin veneer of anonymity would be blown. I will say that I did copy-edit half of it, and did substantive editing for three of the chapters. Please don't tell me about any typos I missed. That was probably the other copy-editor.

The rest of you will have to wait until November to get a copy, but I'm going to whet your appetite:

"The language of food sovereignty was initially introduced by La Via Campesina to express both the truth of power relations within the food domain and the hope for the democratic, widely dispersed, just distribution of those powers over food...In order to transform the dominant forces, including those related to politics, economics, gender, the environment and social organization, we need to be able to imagine and articulate new relationships to food, community and ultimately the earth."

"Instead of the current construct of farmers producing and individual consumers buying food, where both the access to and production of food are determined by the market, food sovereignty begins from the position of citizens engaged in decisions about providing life-sustaining good food."

From the publisher: "Achieving food sovereignty requires conceptual and practical changes, reshaping menus, farming, communities, relationships, values and policy, but, as the authors clearly demonstrate, the urgent work of building food sovereignty in Canada is well under way."

Inside:
"Advancing Agriculture by Destroying Farms? The State of Agriculture in Canada"
"Indigenous Food Sovereignty: A Model for Social Learning"
"Growing Community: Community Gardens as a Local Practice of Food Sovereignty"
"Community Nutrition Practice and Research: Integrating a Good Sovereignty Approach"
"Transforming Agriculture: Women Farmers Define a Food sovereignty Policy for Canada"
and more!

Community helps prepare for natural disasters

With farmers becoming as scarce as hen's teeth, where you used to be able to get advice at the local coffee shop, feed mill, or elevator, you have to sometimes go further afield. New communities of shared interest rather than shared geographical proximity are filling in some of the gaps. One such, for computer-savvy farm folk, is the #agchat community on Twitter. Although a subset of avid internet and social media users, it's a fairly diverse crowd of vegetable, grain, livestock and dairy farmers, big and small. In the wake of Hurricane Irene, last night during the weekly chat on Twitter, people offered tips on dealing with natural disasters.

I live in a pretty disaster-free area. Landlocked and far inland, we aren't affected by hurricanes or tsunamis. The last earthquake my mom remembers, in the 80's, knocked a picture off the wall. Land flat as a dinner plate means no volcanoes. We've had some spring flooding lately, but the main disasters that threaten agriculture here are drought, hail, high winds, and the odd tornado.

I posed a question about limiting hail damage (besides using insurance) and got some good replies. Bonus: only 140 characters each, max. 

- ensure proper shelter for livestock, machinery
- For fruit growers and produce ... there is hail netting
- depending on the crop (mkt/csa veggies) & where located, putting on layer of row cover for some protection
- Diversify! Some crops recover from hail better than others. Squash & lettuce get wrecked, but onions and tubers have reserves 2 recover
- a big tarp? For silage bags, we keep a lot of duct tape around to repair holes
- with 150 year old hardwood trees for cover -- hail is just a way to fill the cooler before the game.
- another consideration 4 crops wld be where to plant...w/in natural borders & protection via trees, tall grasses (permaculture)     

The question on dealing with high winds or tornadoes also got good replies.

- You know all those century old Midwest barns built into a side of a hill? Pretty smart huh?
- Our Coverall buildings bend in the wind. They have held up pretty well to tornado and high winds 
- Our farmhouse is concrete up to the rafters. It can withstand tornadoes. No other buildings have ever gone down in high winds
- Tough to fortify against tornado, but for high winds, we did plant a windbreak many years ago around our grain storage facility
- get rid of items sitting around that become missles n windstorms. Put equip n bldgs. Clear clutter.
- hoop bldgs fared better w less damage 2 bldg contents than pole bldgs n r area n July 11 windstorm
- Future farm infrastructure development should consider geodesic domes for rock solid structures, tornado resistant
- ''portable'' hoophouses & similar structures can be taken down in prep if ahead of storms..transporting delicate crops elsewhere
- keep trees trimmed away from power lines, bldgs. Put in underground power lines where possible 2 minimize damage. 

The drought question did not garner any replies that I found useful, living in a region where climate change is predicted to create multi-year droughts. "Pray" and "Irrigate" were the two answers given. I would suggest that diversification and drought-tolerant plants would mitigate some damage. Ultimately, I think the more links we have with different communities, the more resilient we will be.
          

You can't go home again.

My hometown's centennial is this summer, and there's a big reunion planned. I was a farm kid living half a mile from town during the 75th reunion. Hundreds of people attended. I remember a floor-shaking country dance, driving a John Deere 3020 in the parade down main street, and christening the pioneer memorial (mostly, I remember ringing the giant bell).

Today, the town has twelve residents. Those of you from rural areas probably know what happened.

Last weekend, I saw a presentation by geographer Christiane von Reichert at a conference in Missoula, Montana. She studied rural depopulation. Every area sees out-migration, she said, but rural areas don't see any in-migration in return. The people who are most likely to move to and stay in rural areas are returnees who grew up in that area.

Von Reichert and her team attended high school reunions in 21 counties and conducted 400 interviews with people who stayed, left, and came back to their town to find out what attracted people back to rural areas and what made them stay. She then made recommendations for rural areas attempting to maintain or increase their population.

The number one reason people returned was for their children. They wanted their kids to be close to nature, be safe, be close to their family and roots, and have personalized educational experiences in smaller schools. So the biggest attraction in small towns was child-friendly infrastructure - quality child care, education, activities, parks, libraries, etc.  A related point was to have senior-friendly infrastructure: often, families moved back so children could get to know their grandparents.

The biggest barrier, of course, was economic. There tends to be few job opportunities in small towns. To that end, the geographer recommended that towns stay connected with former residents, point out employment opportunities, and most importantly, rather than "chasing smokestacks" - enticing big footloose factories to locate only to have them pull up roots for more attractive places later - help returnees with local business start-ups.


I don't think I'll ever be able to go home again, but I hope that some small towns will be able to entice people back. Agroecologist John Vandermeer believes that re-ruralization is necessary for a sustainable food system. For my part, I just think a child-friendly, community-minded, vibrant small town sounds like a really nice place to live.

Homespun Wisdom

In December, I was very fortunate to interview an amazing 69-year-old farmer from Manitoba with an incredible knack for turning a phrase. Fred is erudite and down-to-earth, humourous and sober, gentle and passionate. You can hear an interview with him on Shaking the Tree Radio, but these quotes are from my interview with him. We talked about the demise of the family farm, the loss of rural communities, the future of agriculture, and public consciousness. Fred explained how the logic of the capitalist marketplace means that wealth and knowledge are transferred out of rural areas into the hands of monopolistic corporations as citizens' democratic control over the economy weakens.

"I remember when my dad first sprayed a field for yellow mustard. This was such a novelty I rode on the tractor with him to watch him apply 24D to a field, which now is total lunacy. But all of a sudden it changed the way we farm.It created a dependency where the benefit of the technology was all captured by the price of the technology. And then because prior to that the knowledge was passed from generation to generation when I was probably at maybe preschool I can remember my grandfather taking me by the hand and showing me things. You see, that was that intergenerational transfer of agricultural knowledge that goes back right to the Euphrates valley 10000 years ago. All that linkage and all of a sudden, when my dad hooked on that sprayer, that knowledge was not important anymore...The transfer of knowledge from community to a place where community rents and buys knowledge from a knowledge supplier is not a sustainable system."

Fred contrasted our situation on the Prairies to the situation he saw in the Philippines a decade ago, where politicians were eager to embrace - and to force people to adapt to - the industrial farming that we model, with all the losses that would entail.

"There's another thing that I didn't realize we'd lost until I'd done that trip to the Philippines. In the evening, because of their poverty to a degree, the community there functioned as a community. They got together, and adults sat around talking about the problems of agriculture. Which never ends, it's universal. And on the outside of the circle, the children were sitting listening in. I thought, “I've been there.” But it's a long time ago, and we don't have that anymore. We come in off the long day and we turn on the idiot box or we pick up the paper and the nodding heads and the golden hands direct the conversation. Because you know, it's got to a degree that a lot of people in social circles think that it's impolite to initiate a conversation about the social and economic problems of our community. They just want you to go away, don't bother me with that. I want to turn on something like Dancing With the Stars. And there I get to participate 'cause I can vote! That's democracy!"

And finally, on community:

"I always look towards the collective way to do things, because I desire my neighbour more than his land. Because without my neighbour, the land isn't much good to me, because an agricultural desert is not the place I want to live."