Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
The Alabama State Association of Cooperatives (ASAC) is proposing a three (3) year outreach and technical assistance program to work with the African-American farmers and forestry landowners in a 12 county area of the western Alabama Black Belt. The eight (8) primary service counties in the western Alabama Black Belt area are: Pickens, Sumter, Choctaw, Greene, Hale, Marengo, Perry, and Wilcox; the four (4) adjoining counties are Clarke, Monroe, Washington and Dallas. 1,218 (42%) of the African-American farmers in the state reside in these counties. In the past, these farmers have been neglected in the provision of USDA services contributing to the general poverty of this rural impact area. The ASAC, the Alabama affiliate of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives, will provide outreach and assistance to farmers in retaining and expanding their landholdings, accessing and fully utilizing USDA programs and supporting cooperative development in the state. The program will seek to assist African-American farmers who have previously been neglected to share in credit, conservation, extension and rural development programs provided by USDA.
Animal Health Component
100%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
100%
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
We have three long term goals for our proposed outreach and technical assistance program for the Alabama State Association of Cooperatives. These are: a. To ensure that African-American farmers in our area and statewide retain, expand and fully utilize their landholdings and land base. b. To educate and assist African-American farmers to access and fully utilize all available programs of the United States Department of Agriculture, with emphasis on credit, conservation, insurance, extension and rural development related programs. c. To assist African-American farmers to support existing agricultural cooperatives in the state; expand and organize new cooperatives and other self-help ventures as needed to support those activities and ventures on an ongoing basis.
Project Methods
1. To survey 250 of the African-American farmers in the 8 county primary service area of the project in year one. This will help develop a data base and base line survey of their agricultural status and needs. 2. Hold at least two workshops per year for the entire service area, at the Federation's Rural Training and Research Center in Epes, Alabama, to introduce and explain USDA programs to all farmers. 3. Assist sixteen (16) African-American farmers, two per impact county, to apply for and receive USDA Farm Service Agency Farm Operating Loans in year one. 4. Assist eight (8) African-American farmers, one per impact county, to apply for and successfully receive USDA Farm Service Agency Farm Ownership Loans in year one. 5. Assist up to five young people per year to receive youth agricultural loans from USDA Farm Service Agency. 6. Assist at least 25 farmers, per year, from the impact area to develop " farm conservation plans" and receive conservation assistance for approved practices from the programs of the USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS).