By Tim King
“Land, as the source of life, isn’t something that should be bought and sold.” At least not according to La Finca Cooperative, in Porter, Maine, and Land in Common in Greene. With this guiding principle in mind, the two entities — one a budding farming cooperative and the other a community land trust and land justice advocacy organization — jointly purchased a 15-acre farm in Porter in April of 2024.
For La Finca Cooperative, the goal of the purchase was to establish a cooperative farming community with a Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) majority focused on producing halal meat and fresh vegetables, while also creating a safe space for community healing and land connection.
La Finca and Land in Common shared the vision of taking the 15 acres out of the for-profit real estate system. Essentially, La Finca and Land in Common are working to recreate “the commons”: a collective form of landholding.
Land in Common, according to the mission statement on its website, “removes land from speculative markets and places it into a member-run trust, to be cared for over the long-term by its residents. We are creating a multi-generational land base for sustainable livelihoods that supports communities working for just, cooperative, and resilient futures.”
These principles require an understanding of the very real estate system they are working to dismantle.
Establishing The Commons
“Land in Common was in conversation with La Finca for at least a year offering land access technical support,” said Jesse Saffeir, one of Land in Common’s three co-equal staff members. “The original plan was that La Finca would purchase a farm themselves, and we’d offer support with business planning, the technical dimensions of purchasing farmland, and cooperative ownership structures.”
Once the co-op members had purchased the farm, and gotten on solid financial footing, it was imagined that someday La Finca might place their land into the commons, thereby joining the other Land in Common projects held in trust. They include Presente! Farm, Full Circle Willow, Wild Mountain Cooperative, and Wild Mountain Nursery, all on 214 acres of agricultural and wild land in Greene, and Celebration Tree Farm and Wellness Center, a long-term land steward of 110 acres in Durham. By putting the land in trust, it would stay affordable for the next generation.
It didn’t work out exactly as planned.
“A couple weeks before the closing, La Finca’s loan application got rejected,” Saffeir said. “When we heard this, we scrambled to see if there was anything we could do that would make it possible for La Finca to still buy the land.”
The land in Porter was owned by a seller that also wanted to sell the adjacent woodland acreage to the Francis Small Heritage Trust (FSHT) simultaneous to the La Finca sale.
“If La Finca couldn’t pull off a purchase, FSHT’s offer for the woodland would also likely be rejected,” Saffeir said. “But we worked out an arrangement with the Cooperative Fund of the Northeast where they would lend to us if Land in Common purchased the land with La Finca. Land in Common would purchase the farm, and La Finca would eventually purchase and own the infrastructure on the land.”
Saffeir, whose co-worker Ethan Miller was primarily responsible for managing the La Finca purchase, points out that the short notice for the purchase created external, as well as internal, challenges for Land in Common.
“With just a couple weeks to spare we set out to raise $90,000 for the land portion of the purchase price,” Saffeir said. “We had never done a capital campaign like this before. Usually they take over a year, but people stepped up in incredible ways and we received a huge outpouring of support from dozens of grassroots donors.”
In April 2024 they were able to purchase the farm, thanks to the support of the community.
The community’s rapid response, however, challenged Land in Common’s internal decision-making process that involves the three-member staff collective and the leadership council, which Saffeir says is equivalent to a board of directors. “All of the members of the leadership council are BIPOC community organizers who work for other organizations and groups focused on land justice,” she said.
The council members are deeply embedded in their communities and, due to those relationships, are often either approached by or learn about groups seeking land. In considering new Land in Common cooperative members, they keep in mind a set of priorities.
“Our priorities are land return to Wabanaki nations and people, and land security for other Black and brown communities who have been dispossessed of land or excluded from land security,” Saffeir said. “We also seek groups that share our vision of land decommodification, groups that want to care for land, groups that share our values of restoring land connection to Wabanaki people, and groups practicing mutual aid and fighting for collective liberation.”
While La Finca met these priorities, the urgency of the circumstances didn’t allow ample time for council members to develop relationships with the members-to-be. Typically, when a new project is being considered by Land in Common, the entities get to know each other as a project unfolds, which creates space for trust building and a clear understanding of each other’s goals.
“We didn’t have time for that relationship building and had to call a series of last-minute meetings with the leadership council to decide whether we had the capacity to take on the project,” Saffeir said.
The leadership council had an introductory get together with the four members of La Finca — Antonio LaSalle, Amara Watkin-Anson, Jamel Torres, and Aisha Geerings — and then the council met with the Land in Common staff to decide whether they believed a collaboration was the right long-term approach.
“The leadership council and staff collective discussed the collaboration and then reached consensus that we wanted La Finca to join the Commons,” Saffeir said.
Having reached that decision, Land in Common and La Finca set about raising the funds necessary to purchase the land and infrastructure. A number of individuals made significant contributions, which included $10,000 from an anonymous donor, but the largest came from two of Maine’s land trusts: Maine Farmland Trust and Maine Coast Heritage Trust.
Even though a substantial amount of money was raised through the fundraising efforts of Land in Common and La Finca, it was not enough to purchase the land outright.
“Because of the financing constraints for this project, Land in Common, with a loan from the Cooperative Fund of the Northeast, ended up as the buyer of both land and infrastructure,” said Ethan Miller of Land in Common. “The two groups are now working together on an effort to secure community-based loans that can pay off the institutional debt and allow La Finca to assume ownership of the farm infrastructure.”
Several Land in Common projects are based on 214 acres of agricultural and wild land in Greene, Maine. Photo courtesy of Land in Common
Planning for the Future
Separating land ownership from infrastructure ownership is central to all of the projects with Land in Common, which holds the land in trust so that it is never sold. The farmers, called land stewards, own the infrastructure and can build equity in it as they build their farm. When the buildings are sold to the next land steward, the 99-year Land Commitment Agreement passes to the next land steward.
La Finca’s existing infrastructure on the land in Porter includes an off-the-grid farmhouse in need of repair, three greenhouses, and various outbuildings. They are
working on a number of improvements to the house including replacing the roof, repairing windows, and replacing damaged walls. Electricity for the house and farm is generated with a gasoline-powered generator. “There is an existing solar panel setup but it is outdated and the battery bank is obsolete, so plans are underway for an overhaul,” members of the cooperative said.
While pleased with the outcome, the members of La Finca said that in the lending process they saw much of the systemic discrimination that keeps other people of color from owning land.
“CFNE, while a forward thinking and unconventional lender, still has an obligation to pursue loans that have a certain amount of traction,” La Finca members said. “As a new, young farm business, and one that is comprised of majority Black and brown members, we were faced with some of the same persisting historical, racial, and economic challenges that have faced similar folks for generations. It can be very hard to gain access to funding and resources without generational wealth and opportunities, and unfortunately what CFNE felt comfortable lending was not quite enough for the full purchase of the land.”
All four La Finca members have prior experience working in either agriculture or on environmental projects. LaSalle worked in both livestock and vegetable production for a number of years in California and Maine. Watkin-Anson worked on small-scale organic vegetable farms in New England over the last 17 years, including at Broadturn Farm in Scarborough, Maine, and also has experience consulting on small farm and culinary businesses in Kenya. Torres, who holds a bachelor’s degree in environmental studies from the University of Vermont and a master’s degree in community planning and development from the Muskie School of Public Service at the University of Southern Maine, is the land use division director at the Southern Maine Planning and Development Commission, the regional planning organization serving southwestern Maine. Geerings grew up in North Carolina and spent her first years in her grandparents’ gardens, strapped to their backs like her mother before her. It was there that she learned of the connection we all share with the Earth. She has a degree in medical anthropology and has spent most of her professional career working in community health in Lewiston.
LaSalle and Watkin-Anson do most of the day-to-day farm work, and Geerings and Torres are involved more in the visioning, networking, community building, and fundraising.
“We all meet regularly to discuss happenings and planning for the future as well as any time there is a larger decision to be made,” they said. “We also have a document which outlines our internal operating agreements as well as how we go about making decisions, solving disputes, bringing new members on, and overall governance.”
LaSalle learned about raising and slaughtering goats to meet the requirements of Muslim customers at one of his previous farm jobs. Bringing that knowledge to La Finca, and the area’s Muslim community, seemed like the right approach for their new business.
“We have rabbits that we are raising for meat production,” they said. “The goal is to scale up to be able to offer rabbits, goats, and chickens to the local Muslim community, as well as other local customers. We are committed to raising animals sustainably and humanely on the farm and are intentional about incorporating them into the larger ecosystem.”
To that end, the La Finca farmers utilize rotational grazing and compost the farm’s manure, which is applied to their vegetable fields. Some of that manure comes from feeding the farm’s excess produce back to the animals. They intend to develop an agroforestry plan for La Finca in the future. They also hope to be able to offer more opportunities for members of their cooperative and others to live on and engage with the land. They envision adding camping sites, cooperative housing, and more.
“As nature lovers, farmers, and land stewards we’ve long had conflicting feelings about land access and privilege,” La Finca said. “The legacy of colonialism has persisted in many conservation efforts, which unfortunately ground many traditional land trusts. We found a unique opportunity here with the purchase of this land in that we were able to secure it with the help of Land in Common, which is a land trust that focuses on returning stolen land to Indigenous and BIPOC folk, as well as the Francis Small Heritage Trust, a more traditional conservation land trust.”
In the fall of 2025, Land in Common and La Finca will put out a call to find small community lenders to help take over the debt with the Cooperative Fund of the Northeast.
About the author: Tim King is a produce and sheep farmer, a journalist, and cofounder of a bilingual community newspaper. He lives near Long Prairie, Minnesota.
This article originally appeared in the winter 2024-2025 issue of The Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener.