The Rural Advancement Foundation International USA (RAFI-USA)
Betty L. Bailey, Executive Director
John Justice, Development Officer
P.O. Box 640
Pittsboro, N.C. 27312
919-542-1396
919-542-0069 fax
E-Mail: bbailey@rafiusa.org
Web: www.rafiusa.org

Tracing its roots all the way back to the National Sharecroppers' Fund of the 1930s, RAFI-USA became an independent non-profit in 1990, charged with the challenge of addressing the problems of family farms and the people who work on them. Its mission statement calls for "the preservation of family farms, conservation of agricultural biodiversity, socially responsible use of new technologies, safe food and a sustainable system of agriculture."

Housed in busy, cluttered offices in a red-brick, turn-of-the-century hotel building on the town square of tiny Pittsboro, N.C., in rolling agricultural country between the Raleigh and Greensboro metropolitan areas (not far from the fictional Mayberry RFD), RAFI-USA has a staff of just 12 -- 10 full-time -- and a $700,000 annual budget. It is both a national non-profit involved in coalition with other sustainable-agriculture and food-security organizations, and a grassroots organization working closely with farmers and advocates in its immediate region, where peanut farming, tobacco and industrial poultry production are pillars of the agricultural economy and the focus of much of RAFI's attention.

RAFI's current activity occurs mostly in three broad areas: Contract Agriculture, primarily involving advocacy for farmers in their relationship with the corporate poultry industry; Biodiversity and Biotechnology, with particular attention to the loss of diversity in crops under corporate agriculture, and the increasing corporate control of genetic patents; and Sustainable Agriculture, with a variety of projects addressing specific sustainability issues.

More specifically:

CONTRACT AGRICULTURE addresses vertical integration in the poultry business -- the ownership of most industrial poultry processing by a handful of major firms including Tyson, Perdue and ConAgra -- and the practice by these firms of contracting with small farmers and providing them birds, feed and medications to raise in 8-week cycles, selling the grown birds back to the companies. The farmers assume many of the risks and capital expenses and enjoy no negotiating power or opportunity to sell the birds on the open market. RAFI was an instrumental partner in establishment of the National Contract Poultry Growers' Association, NCPGA, which is based in Louisiana and now has associations in 17 states. It is also working on federal and state legislation that would facilitate NCPGA and like organizations representing groups of farmers in negotiations with the poultry firms.

BIODIVERSITY, or more specifically, the loss of it as agribusiness seeks consistent and high-profit produce for national and international distribution, is a particular concern at RAFI, where staff working on this issue conducts research into bioengineering patents, seeks to raise public awareness of the issue, and tries to mobilize effective responses. Its small but influential publication, "RAFI Communique," which is distributed in 80 countries, provides a bully pulpit for its reports. RAFI is also working with Mother Jones magazine for a major article, to be published soon, titled "Who Owns Your Body," and outlining the surprising corporate patents assigning ownership of decoded genetic information to major businesses, and the implications this holds for us all.

SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE covers a number of specific projects, many of them innovative and replicable. RAFI's PEANUT PROJECT organizes Carolina peanut farmers, extension agents and university researchers to work together in pursuit of ways to reduce the heavy use of toxic pesticides in peanut farming. The organization is preparing a replication manual outlining the way it set up these partnerships. Its TOBACCO COMMUNITIES PROJECT mobilizes tobacco farmers in search of alternative high-profit crops in the face of changes in the tobacco economy. In one exceptionally effective approach, RAFI used grants from Robert Wood Johnson, Duke University and other sources to award five $10,000 grants in a "Tobacco Reinvestment Fund," an incentive to farmers to try pilot projects that add value to agricultural crops as an alternative to tobacco growing.

Finally, in its ORGANIC INTEGRITY project, RAFI works to ensure appropriate regulation to bar the misuse or misleading use of terms like "organic" in marketing. It's currently involved in coalition with other groups (including WHY) to file objections to a proposed USDA regulation that advocates regard as pro-industry. RAFI was active in founding, and works closely with, the Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group (SAWG), which works in 15 Southern states and is committed to identify, motivate and help train a new generation of farmers.

In all its work, RAFI follows the philosophy of Thomas Jefferson, who said, "The small landholders are the most precious part of a state. Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens, the most vigorous, most independent and most virtuous, and they are tied to their country and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bonds."

All the feature stories on @GRASS-ROOTS.ORG's pages are reported and written by Robin Garr, a prize-winning journalist who has visited more than 500 innovative grassroots programs in all 50 states since 1990.

Browse his book, Reinvesting In America, at Amazon.com.

Send him E-mail.

Back to the @GRASS-ROOTS.ORG Home Page