Why ACRE Exists – Our Story
ACRE began in spaces of loss. Communities burdened with cancer. Rural people displaced by wealthy companies. And legal frameworks that undercut the fundamental pleasures of rural living, like breathing fresh air and drinking clean well water.
From this place of loss, the book Empty Fields, Empty Promises began to move away from a deficit framing of rural life and toward a rich future that intertwines agriculture with environmental goods and rural sustenance. Now, ACRE Justice moves the initiative forward.
ACRE's Background
Loka Ashwood founded ACRE Justice in 2025. Loka has learned from and with rural communities since her childhood. She witnessed the incredible capabity of rural people to defend and remain in place, with the support of action-centered processes and methods. She saw an opening to serve rural needs by centering research in immediate aid.
Stronger Together
ACRE Justice itself seeks to be alive: immediately usable but simultaneously transformative for aggregate impact. ACRE Justice brings together communities and interdisciplinary teams of committed scientists and lawyers. The joy of overcoming suffering through direct impact is experienced together.
What We're Working Toward
The ACRE initiative seeks to build a future where people can live on the land and thrive in dialogue with it. ACRE Justice identifies legal structures that harm rural people to help them recenter the economy of the future around what they want.
Action Based Methods and Support
We foreground our questions in community needs and see our methods as part of action.
Dignifying the Past
We help weave shared historical experiences so people have space to mourn and move forward.
Big Data for Democratizing Agriculture
We help local communities hold extractors accountable by making corporate and financial data accessible.
Rights for Rural People
We make accessible summaries of existing laws and consider ways they can better serve rural people.
