Access To Land
Land-In-Zicht was founded in 2000 when a couple of organic farmers became landless and started looking for a new farm. Considering the price of farming land they had to look for support. Together with friends and colleagues, they created a dynamic of people and money.
They collected interest-free loans and gifts, together with some of their own money, just enough to buy a piece of 4ha of land. This way the organic farm De Zonnekouter (www.dezonnekouter.be) was founded.
In 2009 a second project started at the organic farm De Kollebloem (www.kollebloem.be) for 2,2 ha. At present (2015) both projects collected enough gifts to be able to pay all rent free loans back.
With these small but beautiful projects they created the organization Land-In-Zicht. The goal of Land-In-Zicht is to bring the idea of free land – as in free people – to the public and raise awareness about the problem of rising land prices, speculation and a terribly decreasing number of farmers.
Land-In-Zicht consists of two legal entities: one non-profit social organisation (created in 2000) and one foundation (created in 2009). The non-profit association, with which it all started, is the ideal tool to gather people and develop sociocultural activities to raise awareness on land issues. It can embed organic agriculture in society through the land question.
The foundation, which was created later, was considered a better tool to manage land and money on the long (read: sustainable) run. The foundations 'goal is to buy land or receive land by donation and make it available for organic and biodynamic farmers. It gives sustainable long term usage contracts to the farms.
