De-commodifying land: Challenging your inner capitalist

The price of land keeps going up across the country as wealthy investors buy farmland and people move out of cities. This puts untenable pressure on farmers and land stewards who are producing healthy food and maintaining biodiversity,  land health, and water cycles. But what can be done against the seemingly intractable laws of supply and demand? Neil Thapar, co-director of Minnow,and Mariela Cedeño, partner at Manzanita Capital, are working to de-commodify land, and they're using a lot of different tools to do it––so that land ends up owned and managed by Native American tribes and people of color. They're also educating investors who want to contribute to a healthy food/land system not to expect high returns on their investment, but rather to use their wealth to shift land and power back to its original inhabitants and to food producers practicing good land stewardship.