Our Lens: When Black Mothers & Children Thrive, We Protect Our Futures

At Black Oregon Land Trust, we are changing the narrative of what a farming family looks like by intentionally centering mothers and youth in our programs and services. Historically, agriculture has been framed around the image of the lone farmer or white male landholder. Our work challenges that story by recognizing families, and especially Black and Indigenous Mothers, as the cultural and relational heart of thriving land stewardship.

As midwife Rachelle Garcia Seliga reminds us, “If you want to know the health of a community, look to its mothers.” This wisdom guides our approach. Mothers are often the primary transmitters of cultural knowledge, food traditions, and care practices that sustain both people and land.

In building a thriving Black agricultural ecosystem in Oregon, we invest deeply in the needs, leadership, and skill-building of mothers and children. Through youth programming, family-centered land experiences, and opportunities for mothers to grow their agricultural knowledge and leadership, we are cultivating intergenerational pathways into land stewardship.

When mothers feel supported, resourced, and connected to land, they bring their children with them. Knowledge moves across generations. Food traditions are restored. Cultural belonging deepens.

We believe that when mothers and children thrive on the land, entire communities thrive. And the future of Black agriculture becomes stronger, more rooted, and more enduring.

Land Trust for Community Thriving and Growing Future Stewards

What is a Land Trust?

A land trust is an organization that acquires and holds land in order to meet community needs through conservation, farming, housing, and long-term stewardship. At its core, a land trust treats land not simply as a commodity to be privately owned, but as a shared resource held in service of community wellbeing and ecological care.

There are several types of land trusts, including conservation land trusts, which focus on protecting natural ecosystems and open space, and community land trusts, which focus on ensuring long-term access to land for housing, agriculture, and other community needs.

Black Oregon Land Trust (BOLT) operates as a community land trust, with a specific focus on securing agricultural land for Black farmers and Indigenous, land stewards, and growers across Oregon. Our work responds to the long history of land dispossession and exclusion that has limited Black and Indigenous access to land ownership and agricultural opportunity.

Through BOLT’s model, land is held in trust for the community rather than transferred into private ownership. Farmers and land stewards gain long-term, secure access to land while remaining accountable to a shared vision of ecological stewardship, cultural continuity, and community nourishment.

In this way, BOLT is helping shift the language and practice of land from privately “owning” land toward collectively stewarding land recognizing land not as property, but as a living system that requires care, responsibility, and reciprocity between people and place.

By protecting land for future generations and ensuring it remains accessible to Black and Indigenous farmers and communities, BOLT is building a more just, regenerative, and resilient agricultural landscape in Oregon.