Through leadership in farmland conservation, transfer and tenure, our many events and gatherings, and our Agrarian Legal Support initiative, we support all stakeholders, from farmers and farmland owners to communities and activists, educators, and investors. Our team has more than 60 years of combined experience in agriculture and farmland conservation. We offer a variety of services, initiatives, and resources that support farmers, organizations, and communities.
Democracy CollaborativeThrough our cutting edge research and our many diverse programs, The Democracy Collaborative works to carry out a vision of a new economic system where shared ownership and control creates more equitable and inclusive outcomes, fosters ecological sustainability, and promotes flourishing democratic and community life.
Open Source Ecology
An open source, libre economy is an efficient economy which increases innovation by open collaboration. To get there, OSE is currently developing a set of open source blueprints for the Global Village Construction Set (GVCS) – a set of the 50 most important machines that it takes for modern life to exist – everything from a tractor, to an oven, to a circuit maker. In the process of creating the GVCS, OSE intends to develop a modular, scalable platform for documenting and developing open source, libre hardware – including blueprints for both physical artifacts and for related open enterprises.
Open Building Institute
The OBI system is open source, collaborative and distributed. Our focus is on low cost and rapidly-built structures that are modular, ecological, and energy efficient. Our approach focuses on state of the art and ecological housing. This means that the system pays special attention to water-catchment, passive heating and cooling, photovoltaics, thermal mass, insulation, off-grid sanitation, and hydronic heat. Designs and build instructions are contributed by designers around the world and are reviewed by experienced builders. A shared pool of designs means that each one of us does not have to reinvent the wheel. A greater number of designers means faster development. And the larger the number of contributions, the greater the diversity of approaches and solutions we can choose from. All modules and procedures are open source—forever and with no exceptions. This means that everyone is free to use, modify and redistribute them. Our OSHWA-compatible license also ensures that you are free to profit from these designs—by using them, for example, in design and/or build contractor work.
Farm Hack
We are a worldwide community of farmers that build and modify our own tools. We share our hacks online and at meet ups because we become better farmers when we work together. Farm Hack is a community for those who embrace the long-standing farm traditions of tinkering, inventing, fabricating, tweaking, and improving things that break. We are farmers of all ages, but the project has special relevance to young and beginning farmers as a place to learn from their peers’ and their elders’ successes, mistakes and new ideas. We also seek to bring our non-farmer allies on board: engineers, architects, designers, and the like. Together, with an open-source ethic, we can retool our farms for a sustainable future.
Lammas (UK)
The Lammas project has been created to pioneer an alternative model for living on the land. It empowers people to explore what it is to live a low-impact lifestyle. It demonstrates that alternatives are possible here and now.
The project centres around the ecovillage at Tir y Gafel, in North Pembrokeshire, which has been designed using a model that can be replicated across Wales.
Dancing Rabbit (US)
At Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage (DR), we understand how difficult it can be to live sustainably and responsibly within modern US culture. We believe that we can work to build a healthy alternative: a social structure that is both non-exploitative and vibrant. As our village grows, we see this ideal take shape more clearly every day: a diverse range of people living ecologically sound lives in a community that truly serves as an example of positive human action within the natural world.
O.U.R. Ecovillage (BC)
is a sustainable learning community and demonstration site located in the beautiful Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. They base our work on Permaculture principles and offer learning opportunities for Natural Building, Sustainable Food Production and Leadership.