At the end of 2025, a unique public body called the California Agricultural Land Equity Task Force presented the governor with a set of recommendations to make access to rural lands for food and fiber cultivation and gathering more equitable. The diverse Task Force asked for: returned tribal land, agricultural conservation that prioritizes equity, a land observatory to support more equitable real estate transactions, first opportunity to purchase acts, increased representation in water districts and other regulatory bodies, agricultural tenant protections, and zoning and land use planning to increase the number of land stewards in rural communities.
Presenters discuss the Task Force, its public engagement process, and its recommendations, and use California's example to show how land-equity goals are constituted. California has a cultural and socioeconomic history of both diverse farmworkers and state policies that resulted in farmland exclusion and dispossession.
Start to define what agricultural land equity could look like in your community and receive a Land Equity Workbook to facilitate your small-group planning exercises. Closed Captioning
Learning Objectives:
Discuss how different cultural groups' land relations can inform planning processes to create equitable land access, and consider how to answer, "What is equitable land access?"
Identify how planning practices such as zoning create and restrict equitable agricultural land access.
Understand statewide rural land-access initiatives like the California Agricultural Land Equity Task Force and consider its process as a model for other diverse, rural places.
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