Community Farm Alliance Helps Farmers, Neighborhoods Achieve Self-Reliance
by Abraham Paulos
The media were ablaze during the farm crisis in the 1980s. Falling land values meant that farmers no longer had the equity to sustain their loans and thousands of U. S. farmers were forced from their land as farm foreclosures and bankruptcies swept the nation. From 1981 to 1986 U.S. farmers were experiencing high rates of depression, withdrawal from family and friends, behavioral problems in children and marriage, mood swings, increased physical aggressiveness, high levels of frequent illness, fatigue, loss of temper and, worst of all, feelings of worthlessness.
In Kentucky alone the real value of farmland dropped 16 percent between 1981 and 1985. A drop like that is catastrophic in Kentucky where farming "is not just about revenue, it's a way of life" according to Deborah Webb, director, of Community Farm Alliance(CFA)
one of the leading a community-based organizationS that provides leadership, human services, and community action to respond to the ongoing farm and rural crisis.
Not everyone suffered during the U.S. farm crisis; some were earning record profits. U.S. farm policy had put the profits of multinational corporations before the needs of both family farms and consumers. Grain traders and brokerage houses, for example, were having record seasons as the volumes traded increase and speculators flock to gamble on large price swings. The company Cargill alone reported a 66 percent jump in profits for 1986. Then, almost as swiftly as it started, the media attention disappeared. For most Americans, the farm and rural crisis was over. But it actually wasn't over. Today one of the leading causes of death among American farmers is suicide.
Founded in 1985 in response to the farm crisis, CFA is a multi-issue membership organization dedicated to community led economic development that benefits both rural and urban communities, the future of family farming, and citizen engagement in public policy issues in Kentucky. CFA's goals are to change basic power relations that shape the poverty and marginalization of low-income rural and urban economies. They believe that community organizing is the cornerstone to making rural communities more democratic. They also help members enlarge their understanding of the economy and political process.
During an interview Webb elaborated on CFA's most important victory which occurred in 2000, "members successfully led a campaign resulting in … Kentucky being the only state to create a uniquely democratic process to oversee the expenditure of $1.7 billion dollars in tobacco settlement monies for the purpose of transitioning Kentucky's tobacco dependent farm economy to a new farm economy." CFA organized farmers from 40 counties to accept governance positions created by the legislation and to jointly cooperate in achieving organizational objectives. CFA members then analyzed needed statewide policies to meet the visions of local communities, which the state largely adopted in a 25 year statewide agricultural comprehensive plan governing the use of tobacco settlement funds.
CFA cultivates a diverse grassroots volunteer leadership as the best way to confront issues and find solutions. Members facilitate meetings, plan agendas, speak to politicians, the media, outline strategies to form coalitions, change public policies and improve community conditions. A tenet of CFA organizing is a belief that communities can effectively confront the problems ordinary citizens face by relationships regardless of race, gender or age.
West Louisville is about one-tenth of the land area of Jefferson County, Kentucky. Twelve neighborhoods in Louisville house 70 percent of the African American population. Fifty percent of the city's WIC recipients live in West Louisville. Jefferson County in Kentucky has experienced economic growth with an unemployment rate of 3.3 percent. However, West Louisville has an unemployment rate around 10 percent and a poverty rate of 38 percent for 77,724 people, including 13,000 children, as compared to an 18 percent poverty level for children countywide.
Of 105 grocery stores in Louisville, four stores serve West Louisville. This is a ratio of one grocery store for every 19,431 residents. By contrast, there is one grocery store for every 6,100 residents countywide. There are 24 convenience stores in West Louisville. Sixteen of them sell meat, bread and milk, but only six of them sell fruits and vegetables. These low-income residents pay 10 to 40 percent more for food than higher income residents.
Prior to 2003 there was not a single farmers' market in a low-income urban community in Kentucky. CFA has created three new urban markets that serve 7,350 low-income people with fresh food, previously unavailable in West Louisville and provided income for 23 farmers. Not only does the urban market earn revenue for farmers, the market accepts food stamps, and makes local, fresh food easily available to low-income community memeber. It also hosts festivals throughout the year that brings people together in a positive fashion, it hosts cooking demonstrations and neighborhood children create murals enhancing the social health of the environment.
Community Farm Alliance is a well-deserved winner of the Harry Chapin Self Reliance Award (HCSRA) administered by Reinvesting In America (RIA). The HCSRA is awarded as a cash grant to outstanding grassroots organizations in the U.S. that have moved beyond charity to creating change in their communities. Winners are judged outstanding for their innovative and creative approaches to fighting domestic hunger and poverty by empowering people and building self-reliance.
This award will help CFA open a farmer-owned local food distribution business, while organizing residents from the most vulnerable neighborhoods. Fifty-two restaurants and small grocery stores form the current customer base, along with a network of twenty farmer's markets and the 4,300 low-income seniors. CFA is building the capacity of the neighborhoods to achieve some measure of economic self-sufficiency. This means including residents as vendors. CFA embodies community empowerment and self-reliance by building an economy, as Webb simply states, "that serves the people instead of the people serving the economy."
