While the Agrarian Commons model removes individual land ownership, which makes it difficult to access traditional forms of financing, the model is designed to open new pathways for equity generation. Ensuring that farmers are able to build equity is particularly important considering the ways that the racial wealth gap and racist land dispossession are interconnected in the United States. Indigenous, Black, Latino, and other farmers of color in particular have been excluded from access to land and capital needed to establish and maintain farms, which has further entrenched structural racism across our society.   Here’s how the Agrarian Commons model ensures that farmers are able to build equity: The ground lease is the most commonly utilized tool through which the Commons introduces equity building for farmers. Under a ground lease, farmers retain ownership of buildings and infrastructure they construct and invest in on the land. So, while the farmer does not own the land, the absence of a mortgage payment frees them up to invest in critical infrastructure which they retain ownership of and which represents built equity. Farmers enter into 99-year (or the maximum as per state law) renewable leases with Agrarian Commons, and farmers may be able to sell the value of their leasehold interest. In addition, many farmers who operate under traditional forms of land ownership and access to capital find themselves overburdened with debt and struggling to maintain even basic quality of life standards. Under traditional agricultural economic models, many farmers work their whole lives to build equity in a farm only to have to sell it off, and at a price next generation farmers cannot afford, just so they can retire. The simple act of lowering debt, land costs, and overhead costs for farmers allows them to invest and build equity in other areas of their lives.This transformation also has a big impact on a local community. Traditional debt service on land is paid by a farmer to a national bank and that money leaves the farm and community forever. Under the Agrarian Commons model, the farmer pays an affordable lease rate to the community-centered Agrarian Commons they are part of, ensuring the money is reinvested in the Agrarian Commons and its farms, and recirculating the money locally in the surrounding community.