The Odú Project: Ancestral Land Fund – Donation

Over seventy years ago, a farming family in Southeastern North Carolina lost connection to their land.

It happened to so many families back then. Heirs property laws made it easy for land to get sold out from under people, even when it had been in the family for generations. They didn’t leave because they wanted to. They were pushed out.

But they never stopped thinking about that land. Now, after more than seven decades, that same property is finally within reach. The current owners are willing to sell before it ever hits the public market. That almost never happens. It’s a gift. But it’s also a race—once it’s listed, developers will come calling and this chance will disappear.

Here’s what makes this different: this family isn’t just coming back to own land. They’re coming back to farm it. They’re returning to agriculture with an agroecological framework—focused on native species, on working with the land instead of against it, on growing food and plants that matter to their community.

More than 60% of funds have been raised to purchase the land. We only need $85,000 more. 

The Odú Project is led by father and son, George Bryant Jr. And Georie. 

They started with seed production—learning the old ways, figuring out how to save and steward seed. Now they’re moving toward native perennial species together. They are focused on growing native trees and plants that have actual cultural meaning to the community—the species their ancestors would have known, used, and passed down. Plants that fed people. Plants that healed people.
Plants that remind us who we are.

This campaign—helping a family return to their ancestral land—is also an agroecological story. The Odú Project is about rediscovering the simple ways—the everyday ecological practices that families knew by heart generations ago.

Supporting this campaign is a chance for:

• A family returning to land they were displaced from
• Land staying in local hands instead of becoming another development
• Food and native plants getting grown for the community, the way it’s been done for generations
• Agroecological practices to take root and spread
• A small example of what’s possible when land actually returns to the people who steward it