Agrarian Futures

So far in this mini-series, we've looked at community-owned land and why that is important in a world where land is ever more financialized. This week we're talking about farmer cooperatives and in particular an in an incredible farmer cooperative called 'Ulu Coop in Hawai'i.
Hawaiʻi today imports around 90% of its food but It wasn't always this way. For a thousand years the islands fed themselves. Then came colonization, and the sugar and pineapple plantations which turned all of that into an export economy, growing food for somebody else. The last pineapple plantation closed in 2016 and left behind degraded land, little processing infrastructure, and a population living on imported food.
Which brings us to ʻulu - or breadfruit. A canoe crop, carried across the Pacific by the first Polynesian settlers, and culturally significant to Hawaiians for generations. It should be the perfect staple for the islands but for most of the last century it has been commercially worthless.
Today, we are talking to one of the founders and CEO, Dana Shapiro. In 2016, she and nine other farmers started a cooperative. Ten years on, the Hawaiʻi ʻUlu Cooperative has more than 220 farmer-owners across four islands and close to 10,000 trees.
Learn more about 'Ulu at the links below:
Their 10 year anniversary blog: https://ulu.coop/celebrating-10-years-of-growing-together
Shop ʻulu products: https://eatbreadfruit.com/collections/shop
Their cooperative model: https://ulu.coop/the-cooperative-structure
Their impact story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYCBfz6oy7I
IG, FB & YT: @hawaiiulucoop
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Agrarian Futures is produced by Alexandre Miller, who also wrote our theme song. This episode was edited by Drew O’Doherty.

This week we go to Germany to learn about a cooperative called Kulturland who has been working on solving the farming land access problem for over a decade. Kulturland raises money from everyday people and uses that capital to buy farms, take them off the speculative market, and provides farmers with a secure lease. In return, the farmer commits to farming organically and keeping the farm open to the community.
Today, Kulturland holds 53 partner farms, owned by almost 4,000 cooperative investors. In this episode we talk to Thomas Kliemt, who spent 8 years as their Commercial Director. We discuss land financialization in Germany, why a cooperative, and touch on his new work: starting an incubator farm network to train the next generation of farmers.
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More about Thomas and Kulturland:
As Commercial Director of Kulturland-Genossenschaft, Thomas helped grow the cooperative from 7 partner farms to over 50, membership from 250 to 3,000, and a tenfold increase in the balance sheet to nearly €20 million. Now, he is coordinating Germany's first agricultural incubator network — creating infrastructure so new farmers can access land, mentoring, and business development.
He is also the chairman of my local Green Party and serve on the steering committee of the European Access to Land Network, shaping policy that makes farmland accessible for the next generation.
Resources to learn more about Thomas and his work:
Website: Https://www.thomaskliemt.de
Substack: Https://substack.com/@thomaskliemt
Farm Incubator Project: https://thomaskliemt.substack.com/p/incubator-farms?r=1ntyb6&utm_medium=ios
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Agrarian Futures is produced by Alexandre Miller, who also wrote our theme song. This episode was edited by Drew O’Doherty.

If we're serious about building a better food system, we have to start with land.
Across the world, land is getting more and more expensive. In the United States, farmland values have nearly doubled since 2011. What we're witnessing is an unprecedented land rush — one that's driving prices to levels simply unattainable by farmers and ranchers and the people we're actually asking to grow our food. As land is sold to development, we are losing an estimated 2000 acres of farmland every single day.
But the bigger story is what's coming. More than 40% of American farmland is owned by people over the age of 65. What this means is that roughly 370 million acres, an area larger than Texas and California combined, is expected to change hands over the next twenty years. Who ends up owning it will shape our food system for decades.
This mini-series is about what a food system built on cooperative principles could actually look like. In a world where land is becoming a speculative asset owned by distant investors, what would it look like to take land back - to hold it in common, to make sure the people actually farming it can afford to be there?
We need alternatives. And one of the clearest working answers I've come across is Fordhall Community Farm. It’s an almost unbelievable underdog tale that has a lot to teach us about the future of land access in our food system.
More about Charlotte and Fordhall Community Farm:
After having fought hard to save their family home from development, Charlotte settled into her dream job managing the FCLI as their General Manager.
Charlotte is passionate about communities connecting with nature, our landscape and the nutritious food it provides. Her work guiding the Fordhall Community Land Initiative as the General Manager, supports this journey for us all. In-line with the FCLI's commitment to inspire others, Charlotte offers consultancy to other land-based community groups across the country who want to learn from Fordhall and follow in our footsteps.
With this in mind, Charlotte and Ben published a book in 2007, The Fight for Fordhall Farm, which charts their lives at Fordhall from childhood to community-ownership. The book was sold in bookstores across the country and there was even a musical based on it, which toured Shropshire in 2008.
Charlotte is also one of the Community Leaders driving forward the campaign for a Community Power Act.
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Agrarian Futures is produced by Alexandre Miller, who also wrote our theme song. This episode was edited by Drew O’Doherty.

We often talk about how the food system is broken, but what would it look like to build one that is better?
In Season 3 of Agrarian Futures, we reimagine a food system rooted in cooperative principles. What if we didn't live in a winner-takes-all economy, but one where cooperatively owned enterprises worked in partnership with each other across the food supply chain?
Through deep dives into examples on the ground, we'll chart a path from our present moment to a better food future. Launching October 2nd!

Hi everyone - Emma here. We're deep in prep for our new miniseries on Agrarian Futures where we will be exploring the potential for a better food system rooted in cooperative principles.
In the meantime, we’ve got a special announcement: Agrarian Futures is joining the World Within Studios Podcast Network!
World Within is a non-profit that invests in solutions and stories that are building an economy that's owned by the many, not just the few. We are delighted to be adding Agrarian Futures to that effort!
Today, we’re cross-posting an episode of our fellow World Within Studios show: the How to Change the World Podcast.
In this episode, my friend Rostam Zafari sits down with Cooper Hibbert, co-founder of Old Salt Co-Op - a cooperative of Montana ranchers pushing back against big beef. His co-founder Cole Mannix was on a previous episode of Agrarian Futures and I think this conversation today adds even more to the picture of what it will take to build a better food system.
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Agrarian Futures and the How to Change the World Podcast is produced by Alexandre Miller, who also wrote our theme song. This episode was edited by Eve Weston and Martin McGreevy.