From where did Pathways to Land emerge?
Charting our organisation's path
Who do you see when you think of people who steward farmland in the UK?
Is it someone with a similar background to you?
The answer to the second question is often “No” to many who have entered or wish to enter farming from a background that doesn’t include farming in the UK.
Informed by the inequities of historical and current land enclosures and inspired by the work of Rootz Into Growing and Jumping Fences about barriers BPOC (Black and People of Colour) farmers face in their profession, in 2023 Jo Kamal was part of a festival panel organised by myself about what must happen to help diversify who farms in the UK’s farming sector. This sparked interest from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s Emerging Futures programme to fund exploratory Pathways to Land work to:
Identify existing social investment and/or finance available in England for BPOC in farming, particularly to access land for community wealth-building
Gather insights from BPOC farmers and community food organisers about their experiences in the sector, specifically, how they accessed and secured land and the challenges they faced to do so
Identify examples of land finance for BPOC beyond the UK to assess their usefulness to BPOC farmers in England
Produce a Pathways to Land for BPOC report to document findings from the above points (co-authored by Jo, Pauline Shakespeare, and Nicola)
Host in-person and online forums attended by BPOC farmers, landowners and funders to chart what was needed to develop BPOC pathways to land
What intentions emerged for Pathways to Land?
By the end of 2024 and based on our research and directly listening to farmers, funders, and landowners' needs in relation to land access and land sharing, Pathways to Land identified several priority key steps, including:
Providing bespoke training and support to marginalised farmers to help them know more about the various steps needed to access land e.g. financial literacy for farming and navigating the planning system
Helping farmers become more aware of alternative types of land stewardship which potentially help reduce the risks of farming e.g. collectively managed land
Helping landseekers to identify the various components of their farm and how to resource it, such as their preferred organisation type, finance/funding needed for it, stakeholders etc
Raising awareness among small-scale farming-related organisations as well as landowners about specific needs many farmers from less privileged backgrounds require to access land, then enter/remain in the sector e.g. collectively stewarding land (see A Guide Towards Equitable Land Sharing by Jo and Nicola in partnership with Landmatch England)
Implementing recommendations
In 2025 Pathways to Land was thrilled to receive funding from Farming the Future to begin to deliver some of these recommendations in collaboration with Landmatch England’s work in Northwest and Southwest England. Through this, we began to provide a bespoke support programme to a small cohort of marginalised farmers in relation to engaging in the processes to seek land, and develop a farming organisation in these two regions. Our support also includes study visits to farms which use a collective and/or community-focused approach to farming. See the Current Projects page for further details.
Through this support programme, it’s even clearer why there is a need for it and Pathways to Land’s work in general. For the farming sector to mirror the diversity of people and food that are a part of British society, it’s crucial for farmers who have been historically, or are presently marginalised from land, to be able to access it in a supportive way, and to remain on it in the long-term. There are many obstacles to access and stay on the land, and time needed to build professional support networks to help navigate through them. As one of our on Pathways to Land’s 2026 programme cohort reflects:
“I’ve learned so much so far – everything’s been eye opening about how to get land and how to establish something on it. It’s made me realise what a bigger challenge it is than what I thought it would be.”
