Rural Advancement Foundation International-USA

RAFI-USA challenges the root causes of inequities in the food system and supports and advocates for economically, racially, and ecologically-just farm communities.

-- we aim to help farmers weather financial crises, buck the exploitative corporate agriculture system and gain greater self-determination.

-- we aim to help local and regional food and agricultural stakeholders build new, mutually-beneficial partnerships that support more just and sustainable rural communities.

-- we aim to advocate strongly at the state and federal levels for policies which ensure more equitable distribution of public resources that serve everyone, not just the politically powerful.

-- Preserve farm and community assets through one-on-one support for farmers navigating financial crisis.
-- Support BIPOC farmers by creating mutually-supportive spaces for peer-to-peer training and uplifting traditional practices, as well as providing technical assistance and infrastructure grants.
-- Advocate and mobilize for more equitable public policy that challenges corporate food and agriculture systems.
-- Work through coalitions and partnerships to strengthen collective knowledge and power.
-- Build mutually beneficial relationships between local farmers and consumers.
-- Provide technical assistance to farmers, farmers markets and hunger relief organizations to increase food security and market opportunities.
-- Support innovative, replicable cooperatives as models of seed sovereignty.
-- Educate and engage our communities on issues of food access and justice.

RAFI-USA has built a reputation for implementing innovative and practical solutions to reforming our inequitable corporate agriculture system. RAFI-USA's history and proven impact make the organization uniquely qualified to bring together farmers and broad coalitions to work towards our common goals.

For 30 years RAFI-USA has provided one-on-one technical assistance and financial/risk management counseling to farm families. Our program direction and advocacy efforts are built upon our work directly with farmers.

Our Farmers of Color Network is staffed by people of color and decision-makers for our infrastructure granting are 100% BIPOC. All of RAFI-USA’s programs develop annual equity goals and report on those quarterly to the Board of Directors. Our Board is majority people of color recruited because of their knowledge and background.

RAFI-USA was able to quickly and effectively respond to the COVID-19 pandemic because of the relationships and networks we have built and our deep base of knowledge of food and agriculture issues. As the pandemic disrupted farmers' sales and local food supply chains, RAFI-USA’s 15 staff members quickly pivoted to begin moving emergency resources to small farmers, as well as grants to churches/rural hunger relief programs and farmers markets in our networks to purchase more food from local, under-resourced farmers.

Accomplished:
- In 2019, awarded 26 cost-share grants to innovative farmer-led projects in North Carolina.
- In 2019, our Farm Advocacy intensive cases saved $8,314,861 in farm assets.
- Our #StandWithFarmFamilies campaign on the USDA Undue Preference Rule generated more than 84,000 signatures on a Change.org petition, as well as 1,783 comments to USDA.
- Published the report, "When Diversity Isn’t Enough: Experiences of Board Members of Color at Agricultural and Environmental Nonprofits.”
- In 2020, awarded $130,500 in Farmers of Color infrastructure grants to 27 farmers in NC, SC & VA; 66% Black, 11% Indigenous, 11% Latinx, 7% Gullah-Geechee, 4% Asian.
- As COVID-19 response, awarded $500 emergency grants to 138 farmers in NC and 71 farmers in VA, SC, FL, and the US Virgin Islands.
- As COVID-19 response, awarded grants to 69 church and community-based hunger relief groups purchasing food from local farmers.
- In 2020, expanded the Double Bucks Incentive Program to add 6 more NC Triangle-area farmers markets significantly increasing incentives to SNAP, WIC, and WIC FMNP and Section 8 Housing clients.
- In 2020, promoted various Action Alerts to federal and state decision-makers; 3,021 people took 11,106 actions.
- Sold 2,666 bushels of regionally adapted varieties of organic soybeans to farmers in the Southeast.

Not accomplished yet:
Found funding to award infrastructure grants to the 50 farmers of color who applied in the first round but for which we did not have the funds.

What's next:
In 2021, we are looking at the very real possibility of large-scale farm loss. Prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, many farms were heavily debt leveraged and are now fully leveraged or voluntarily liquidating assets. RAFI-USA’s Farm Advocates are assisting these small and mid-size farmers through government programs and negotiations with lenders. During the pandemic, many farmer cases are being carried only so far and then put on administrative hold. Once this moratorium is lifted, we anticipate a great deal of work helping farmers retain assets and hold on to their farms.

We will continue to advocate strongly for under-resourced farmers, agriculture workers, and robust local/regional agriculture in state and federal policies and fight against the corporate dominance in federal programs. We will continue to work to change the public narrative that blames farmers for food supply shortages during the pandemic rather than the true culprits, corporate agriculture.

We will continue helping farmers, farmers markets, and rural communities adapt to on-going changes in food supply chains due to COVID-19 and build more mutually beneficial partnerships between local farmers and consumers. We’ll award the second round of FOCN infrastructure grants, add more rural farmers markets to our existing SNAP incentive programs, host the Come to the Table conference postponed during COVID-19, and harvest the 2020 planting of two NC eco-type wildflowers for seed for sale.