Now is the time to break the cycle of rural-urban divisions: When it comes to competing with the genius and large-scale agricultural forces in the name of food, smallholder farmers and urban farms have a lot in common. Here’s how two agricultural entrepreneurs work together in the name of healthy food supply.
In Colombia, South Carolina, there are plenty of small town attractions, such as parks, baseball fields, HBC colleges, and parades in the Pinhorst Workplace neighborhood. There were also grocery stores: Pinhorst once for Piggly Wiggley, and Sav-a-Lot, among others. Since then. In 2019, all of a sudden, they closed without warning.
April Jones, originally from Acne, Ohio, moved from Pinehur, Ohio, to action. Jones spent her Ohio childhood – playing outdoors and collecting corn, tomatoes, and cherries from their grandparents’ farm – providing a universal way to see and connect with the earth. By reading the 2017 book Fast food genocide By Joel Furman, MD. , Was the first to think about how diseases in society relate to food – “If you have high ADHD, check your food supply, see if you have a high crime rate [food] Access points and how they relate to food results[s], ”Recalls Jones.
“If my community doesn’t have access, I want to create it,” she says.
Remains are difficult to fill due to the loss of a local grocery store or popular parking lot. Farmers ‘markets are part of our country’s lifeblood (only 8,600 are registered in the Farmers’ Market Index in the United States), and they are very important for people living in the food desert, low prices, healthy food and people who have no production options. Urban farms and rural roads are similarly hard-working to feed their communities, which is no small feat compared to large-scale farming, which seems unbearable for smallholder farmers. These food sources also serve an important secondary purpose – community building.
“The place where we invest our money is where our hearts are,” says Jones.
According to USAIDA’s Department of Agricultural Marketing Services, 72 percent of U.S. counties reported at least one farmer market in 2018, with 45 percent receiving SNAP benefits. Neighboring markets, which were able to remain open during the epidemic, earned less than 79 percent in 2019, but still remain an integral part of neighborhoods such as Pinehur.
Thus, in addition to recovering from the epidemic, the next major agricultural transition will move away from the industrial model that contributes significantly to climate change and threatens biodiversity, access to fresh food, and the lives of small farmers. Instead, we need a refreshing model. In addition to industry advocates such as Reincarnation International and The Roaddale Institute, if they are working to do their part, action should also be taken at the community level.
Eric Mattis, co-founder of the Rehabilitation Design and Innovation Institute in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, has laid that foundation. He is an active, current advocate on food justice and access issues, and started a joint venture with Renew Forsyth and the Piedmont Triad Farmers Network in June 2021.
Eric Mattis
The Triad Pilot Market provided food for the Walk Forest Forest Baptist Church’s program, which targeted black and brown communities living in the desert as well as elderly people with health problems. The program aims to develop a culture of entrepreneurship in which one in four children in North Carolina suffers from malnutrition.
“Change is at the speed of faith, and that is an important part of equality,” says Mattis.
Mattis is a strong advocate for the care of the soil as a vehicle that eventually produces healthy crops. “Initially, a lot of our soil is dying,” says Mattis. “In recycling, the real focus is on conserving the soil with all kinds of positive health benefits in terms of climate and climate change and carbon emissions. But this also means increasing the amount of food you eat.
Despite the tendency to harm the environment that feeds us, many muscles can be put behind a sustained institutional change. Dream Corps has been working since 2015 to reward farmers with sustainable practices that benefit their water lines, communities and their communities.
The common ground campaign aims to bring people together on racial, social, and ethnic lines to ensure a more prosperous and diverse future for all Americans. By connecting diverse communities, raising the voices of low-income families and people of color in the climate justice movement, and sharing inspiration and fresh ideas, legendary urban-rural divisions will disappear, and basic groups will work together to find solutions to work together. Long-term problems.
“We all know we’re going to fall for COVID-19,” Jones said. If the person checking you in the store is not healthy, that will affect the health of you and your family. If the solution is not easy, “we need to invest in local communities.”
Dream Corp Green works at the intersection of environmental, economic and racial justice to promote solutions to all poverty and pollution. As the clean economy grows, we recommend strong, robust and healthy neighborhoods with fairy tales based on policy work and compassion that ensure good jobs, better health, and opportunities for historically disadvantaged communities. Learn more by visiting www.thedreamcorps.org or follow us on Twitter @GreenForAll.