Resilient Southern LAND Fund

About

Croatan Institute and Rural Beacon Initiative (RBI) are collaboratively developing the Resilient Southern Legacy and Nature Defense (LAND) Fund—a first-of-its-kind, hybrid land fund that acquires farmland and forests in the US South, transitioning ownership to regenerative farmers and community-rooted land stewards. The LAND Fund is designed to provide access to land and capital to small, underserved land stewards working across Southern food, forestry, and fiber value chains.

The LAND Fund seeks to bridge capital and community by addressing both environmental injustice and climate resilience. This place-based approach embeds social equity and ecological integrity in every transaction.

The Opportunity

The United States is facing its most significant land transition since the 1980s Farm Crisis. Higher interest rates, tighter credit, aging landowners, extreme weather volatility, and federal policy uncertainty are destabilizing land tenure and accelerating land consolidation. This is especially true in the South, where over 40% of U.S. farmland is owned by individuals over 65, creating a $240 billion intergenerational transfer opportunity in the coming decade.

The upcoming transition is a pivotal opportunity for underserved and emerging farmers to shape community land ownership and generational wealth-building.

Our Approach

Croatan Institute and Rural Beacon Initiative are developing a land acquisition strategy to protect rural land and communities.

The team has joined the BII Advancing Regenerative Capital 2026 Fellowship Cohort to incubate and cross-pollinate ideas with incredible financial leaders. To learn more about the fund, please contact lab@croataninstitute.org.