The Landworkers’ Alliance is a union of farmers, growers, foresters and land-based workers.

Feedback for us

If you have any comments, critiques, considerations, compliments, complaints, about anything the Landworkers Alliance is or isn’t up to, do let us know your thought. We love feedback, it keeps a system healthy. Please fill in this quick form.

Membership / Supporter / Donation Queries

Please contact Lauren.Simpson@staging.landworkersalliance.org.uk

Requests for work, volunteering or internships

We are currently not recruiting for any roles but please read our newsletters for any announcements. We currently do not offer any volunteer or internship placements directly with the LWA, but keep an eye out in the newsletter or on the forum for any members looking for volunteers or workers.

Academic/Research Enquiries

Please look at the Agroecology Research Collaboration to see if it fits your area of research/work.

Membership Support / Advice

Currently the LWA does not have capacity or resources to help individual members or potential members on their specific projects, farms or programmes. We get a lot of requests for individual support and would love to have the time to respond to each request in full. We are fundraising for a new role for somebody to focus on membership support and services as we have identified it is a gap in our offering so please watch this space. Having said that, if your query is critical and urgent please email info@staging.landworkersalliance.org.uk including the word URGENT in the subject header and it will get picked up and we can try our best to help.

Contacting Individual Staff

Please take the time to explore our staff page here to see who the most relevant contact for your enquiry is.

Our addresses format is firstname.lastname@staging.landworkersalliance.org.uk

Please bear in mind we all work part time and have limited capacity to respond to enquiries outside our core areas of work.

You can also find information under the About Us header about branch and regional organising, and identity groups within the LWA membership.

Press/Media Enquiries:

For any queries relating to press please email press@staging.landworkersalliance.org.uk

Merchandise/calendar Enquiries

For any enquiries to do with shop sales including the calendar please email merchandise@staging.landworkersalliance.org.uk

To Include an Item in Our Newsletter:

You can fill in this quick form to submit it to be included in the next bulletin/newsletter. The deadline to submit is the end of Friday each week for the following week’s member bulletin. With the same form you can also submit to the monthly non-member newsletter which goes out in the first week of the month.

All Other Enquiries:

For any other enquiries that are URGENT please email info@staging.landworkersalliance.org.uk with the word ‘urgent’ in the subject header and we will do our best to help.

Follow Us

Jumping Fences: New Report Explores Experiences of BPOC Landworkers in Britain

Jumping Fences: New Report Explores Experiences of BPOC Landworkers in Britain
10/01/2023 Yali Banton Heath

A new report has been released presenting research on the experiences of Black and People of Colour (BPOC) in the British farming and land-based sectors.

The Jumping Fences Project is a collaborative research project between Land in Our Names, the Ecological Land Cooperative, and the Landworkers’ Alliance.

The project, led by researcher Naomi Terry, provides evidence-based findings on the experience of a wide-range of BPOC landworkers in Britain, and presents the barriers and challenges they have faced, and how they seek to overcome them.

The Jumping Fences report contains a comprehensive literature review and an analysis of semi-structured interviews with sixteen people who are currently working in the agricultural sector and land-based work in Britain.

It presents the following key findings:

  • All participants experienced isolation in the sector, sometimes in quite traumatic ways.
  • There were many experiences of systemic or structural racialisation, for example being perceived as less competent, or being tokenised.
  • Issues arose for participants based on pervasive societal narratives around who farming is for and what it looks like.
  • Intersectionality: experiences related to race are compounded by other dimensions of identity and oppression, such as gender, ability and class.
  • Participants found that land-work to be a source of healing in many cases
  • Development of a critical consciousness: participants felt motivated towards bringing diversity and justice into the farming sector.

“In the process of carrying out this research, and meeting BPOC farmers around the country, I came across a real range of experiences and perspectives on farming cultures and rural Britain” says lead researcher Naomi Terry

“Some people are experiencing overt and aggressive racism, for example in a local pub, on work exchange farms, or at agricultural university. Many people experience the cumulative effects of microaggressions throughout their lives, and the impacts of working in isolation from their communities and culture of heritage.”

The Jumping Fences report also makes key recommendations for action, projects and policy to address the barriers faced by BPOC landworkers:

  • Shift narratives surrounding who farming is for and associated stigma
  • Change workplace culture on farms and in farming organisations
  • Develop strategies of support, both for emerging and for established BPOC farmers
  • Maintain and create spaces for healing and knowledge exchange
  • Build current networks whilst linking new networks in under-represented regions
  • Promote greater and more stable access to land

There is clearly a need for more financial support, access to land and new entrant opportunities for people from racialised backgrounds in farming, but this alone will not address deeply entrenched structural inequalities” says Naomi

We need to take actions that will encourage a shift in the narratives around who farming is for, and what it can look like.”

 

You can read and download the full report here

An appendix is also available here – Jumping Fences Appendix – Participant journeys into land work, which provides more detail on the rich stories that came out through the interview process.

Please subscribe to our e-newsletter.

This information will never be shared with a third party