Southwest Georgia Regional Food System
This work is inspired by the complexity of rural ownership and/or access, few agricultural based businesses, and tracts of food deserts. Conversely, SW Georgia is one of the most productive agricultural regions in the nation. Alongside large corporate farms, the majority of farmers are small and financially marginal. By coordinating and combining the efforts of small farmers and processors, and filling in the gaps within the food system, there is increased economic opportunity for small food-based value-added businesses to develop and improve access to affordable, nutritious food.
The SWGAP embarked on a planning process in 2010 to strategically identify a process by which the organization could serve as a hub for its partners (rural residents with low income and residents without access to healthy affordable food) to develop and own a regional community food system. Rural, local residents are being empowered to control their local food system from production to consumption by participating in all aspects of planning and implementation of the system. This involves SWGAP facilitating the process of growing food (sustainable/environmentally friendly, chemical free, organic), distributing it to markets (rural grocery stores owned by residents, farmer’s markets, restaurants, schools, hospitals) and processing facilities (East Baker Commercial Kitchen, Flint River Farmer’s Co-op, Southern Alternatives Agricultural Co-op) for value-added processing, before final delivery to customers. We engage communities in advocacy campaigns to educate consumers on healthy eating to combat diseases like obesity and diabetes, and raise awareness of public policy changes which allow for healthy snacks and lunches at school using locally grown food.
Purpose Statement
The Southwest Georgia Project has a mission to serve as a community and an economic development organization in an effort to combat persistent poverty and build thriving communities. Its purpose in the food system is to serve as a resource for—
- strengthening the region’s food system
- engaging more limited resource producers and entrepreneurs and
- improving its food security through high quality services that meet the needs of all residents in the area.
Impact Statement
The SWGAP intends to impact the region’s food system as an exemplar of practice for rural community food systems enterprise that includes:
- using food as a mechanism for human and community development;
- increasing the region’s sustainable farming practices;
- producing consistent revenue streams for farmers and value-added based businesses;
- enhancing access to high quality cultural and heritage foods including value added products;
- improving health by directly impacting food security for the region’s residents;
- extending agritourism opportunities to showcase a rural food system and
- participating in highly productive partnerships with a variety of regional and national organizations with vested interests in food issues.
Values
The core values of the SWGAP follow below:
- To influence policies that affect food pricing, health impacts and environmental outcomes
- To build partnerships with consumers, producers and other organizations including government toward improving the economic, health and environmental outcomes in the region
- To promote and adhere to regulatory and voluntary quality assurance guidelines in order to protect the well-being of potential beneficiaries
- To employ systematic, comprehensive delivery in its programming and outreach efforts
- To provide leadership in the effort to transition farmers to sustainable food productions techniques and support those currently engaged in low chemical input farming regardless of scale
- To motivate more women and youth to be involved in sustainable food systems enterprise
- To participate with integrity in a community food system that reflects balance between the interests and needs of the community relative to its organizational capacity
- To be inclusive of a diversity of people, perspectives and approaches to improving the well-being of the land, environment and regional economy
Target Audiences
SWGAP’s programming is aimed at reaching the following core audiences:
- Sustainable food producers regardless of scale and level of experience
- Value added food businesses using Southwest Georgian products as the base of their products
- Individuals and families living with food insecurity that face multiple levels of vulnerability—biological, social, political, environmental and economic
- Decision makers in schools, churches, non-profit organizations, businesses, health, childcare and governments
Additionally, SWGAP intends to partner with regional and national organizations with vested interests and demonstrated commitment to these issues to improve its impacts in the region.
TRAINING & TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE:
The SWGA Project uses community organizing as a tool to bring communities together to solve their own issues. We assess groups to identify and address technical assistance needs and ensure projects get the necessary resources. This includes hands on assistance in business planning and implementation, bookkeeping and accounting, grant writing, resource development and any capacity building that has been identified as a need. We coordinate efforts on social justice projects and economic development opportunities from start-up phase until the group has the capacity to manage the project.
- Through funding from Risk Management Education and Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE), we provided workshops and hands on technical assistance in production, marketing, value-added processing, insurance, and financial and business planning for farms. Women have been exposed to alternative crops and marketing, Good Agriculture Practices (GAP), and sustainable farming (organic farming and integrated pest management).
- Through intensive community organizing, the SWGAP/SRBWI has targeted groups of women in Dougherty and multiple rural counties to actively engage in farming and development of value-added food businesses.
