Resources for Farmers and Consumers

Farmworker Welfare

Audience: Eaters

• Civil Eats is a daily news source for critical thought about the American food system. Civil Eats publishes stories that shift the conversation around sustainable agriculture in an effort to build economically and socially just communities.
• El Vínculo Hispano, The Hispanic Liaison, helps adults, youth and children adjust to life in the United States of America. “We serve as a bridge between the Hispanic community and non-profits, government agencies and law enforcement.”
• Episcopal Farmworker Ministry serves migrant and seasonal farmworkers in the fields, on the farms, and at home.

• The Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) "challenges the deplorable conditions of the broader workforce of migrant farmworkers that remains voiceless, powerless, and invisible to mainstream America. FLOC seeks a structure where all those in the supply chain work together to solve problems: corporations, growers, and farmworkers."
• Farmworker Advocacy Network (FAN) is a statewide network of organizations that work to improve living and working conditions of farmworkers and poultry workers in North Carolina. They “support efforts of farmworkers and poultry workers to be leaders in the worker justice movement.”
• NC Community Health Center Association has a list of COVID-19 resources for agricultural workers.

• National Farmworker Ministry supports farm worker led campaigns that aim to improve farmworkers’ working and living conditions.
• The North Carolina Agromedicine Institute promotes safe and healthy workplaces for farmers, loggers and fishers. The institute conducts research and educates in order to reduce illness and injury.
• North Carolina Farmworker Health Program works with local agencies to respond to gaps in health care. They increase access to primary and preventive health care and dental services for farmworkers and their families.

• The North Carolina Farmworkers Project serves as the resource center and connection to care for more than 3,000 farmworkers in five counties around Benson, North Carolina.
• NC FIELD "is a non-profit based in Kinston, North Carolina, in the heart of the state's large-scale agricultural region. NC FIELD works to fill service gaps in the farmworker community, raise awareness of the plight of the farmworker, and empower farmworkers to pursue educational and economic opportunities beyond the fields."

• The North Carolina Justice Center provides legal representation to farmworkers and H-2B workers whose rights had been violated. In addition, they advocate for laws that improve the working and living conditions of migrant workers.
• Student Action with Farmworkers (SAF) works with farmworkers, students, and advocates in the Southeast and nationwide to create a more just agricultural system.
• Western North Carolina Workers’ Center builds power among workers of color through organizing, education, and direct action, from an intersectional standpoint, to promote worker justice.

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Food from humanely raised animals

Audience: Eaters

• Use the AGW's online directory to search for Animal Welfare Approved (AWA) and Certified Grassfed farm products.These seals by A Greener World (AGW) are the most highly regarded food labels when it comes to animal welfare, pasture-based farming and sustainability.
• Search the Certified Humane map directory to find Certified Humane Raised and Handled® labeled products. These products meet the standards for laying hens, chickens, turkeys (including poultry slaughter), pigs, beef cattle, dairy cows, sheep and goats.
• Firsthand Foods sells pasture-raised beef, pork, and lamb sourced from a network of North Carolina farmers who raise their animals humanely, on pasture, without using sub-therapeutic antibiotics, added hormones or animal by-products.

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Racial equity

Audience: Farmers and eaters

• Black Family Land Trust, Inc. Ensures, protects and preserves African American and other historically underserved population's land. They improve the quality of life for landowners, by providing families with the tools necessary to make informed, proactive decisions regarding their land and its use.
• Black Urban Growers (BUGS) builds networks and community support for urban and rural growers. Through education and advocacy, we nurture collective Black leadership to ensure we have a seat at the table.
• The CEFS Committee on Racial Equity in the Food System (CORE) works internally and collaboratively with community and grassroots groups to address root causes of food system inequities. Their workshops build a shared analysis, understanding and language around racial equity. Their in-between monthly meetings provide opportunities to share best practices and challenges around a process of engaging racial equity personally, institutionally and culturally.

• The RAFI Farmers of Color Network (FOCN) aims to address threats to the economic survival for farmers of color. FOCN creates a cultural space that honors multi-generational and women-led organizing, agroecological and sustainable practices.
  Recognizing that the impact of oppression is both economic and cultural, the FOCN also works to dismantle systems of oppression by creating a holistic economic and cultural ecosystem that values farmers of color in the local, regional, and national food system.
• The North Carolina Association of Black Lawyers Land Loss Prevention Project & Rural Coalition (LLPP) provides legal support and assistance to all financially distressed and limited resource farmers and landowners in North Carolina. The organization’s advocacy includes litigation, public policy, and promoting sustainable agriculture and environment.
• The Racial Equity Institute (REI) LLC process is designed to help leaders and organizations proactively understand and address racism, both in their organization and in the community. REI offers the Groundwater seminar, and two-day following workshops Groundwater, Racial Equity Phase I-III, and Latino Challenges.

• Southeastern African American Farmers Organic Network (SAAFON)is a network of Black farmers in the Southeastern United States who works to strengthen Black farmers’ collective power to build an alternative food system. SAAFON is committed to culturally relevant, ancestrally guided, and ecologically sustainable agricultural-based living.
• The Color of Food is a photographic storytelling project and book that honors Black, Native, Asian and Latina farmers and food activists across the United States. The book provides insights into the food movement and resilient agrarian life in communities of color.

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Raising livestock on pasture

Audience: Farmers

• A Greener World (AGW) provides the Animal Welfare Approved (AWA) free certification program to independent farmers who raise their animals according to the highest welfare standards, outdoors on pasture or range. In addition, A Greener World offers Certified Grassfed by AGW, and Certified Non-GMO (Non-Genetically Modified Organisms) by AGW accreditations. These seals are the most highly regarded food labels when it comes to animal welfare, pasture-based farming and sustainability.
• The Humane Farm Animal Care organization audits, and certifies farmers, ranchers and retailers in Brazil, Canada, Peru and the United States that meet precise, objective standards for farm animal treatment.
• Firsthand Foods sells pasture-raised beef, pork and lamb sourced from a network of North Carolina farmers who raise their animals humanely, on pasture, without using sub-therapeutic antibiotics, added hormones or animal by-products.

• NC Choices improves the local, niche, and pasture-based meat supply chain in North Carolina. NC Choices, which is an initiative of the Center for Environmental Farming Systems, provides information, technical assistance, educational programming, and networking opportunities for farmers, extension agents, meat processors, buyers, distributors, and consumers.
• NC Growing Together is a USDA-funded project led by the Center for Environmental Farming Systems. NC Growing Together connects North Carolina’s small and medium-sized farmers with retailers, food hubs, and food service buyers. The project also removes the barriers that prevent local produce, meat, dairy and seafood from entering large-scale markets.
• The Keeping Backyard Poultry CDC website provides health information to people who raise chickens in their backyards. There is information about how to lower the chances of people getting infected with the bacteria Salmonella, which can cause diarrhea, fever, and stomach pain.

• The Livestock Conservancy promotes genetic diversity in agriculture by protecting over 150 endangered livestock and poultry breeds.

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Avian influenza information

Audience: Farmers

• Use this USDA Biosecurity for birds - Avian Influenza to learn ways to prevent poultry diseases. This first page is written in English. Por la información en Español, lee la segunda página de este Guía, biosecuridad para aves domésticas.
  
• Check your chicken and turkey flocks for signs of Avian Influenza described on this USDA APHIS website.
• Refresh your understanding regarding the differences between low pathogenic AI and highly pathogenic AI by reading my blog post "What is bird flu? highly pathogenic avian influenza?”.

Are your meat and egg customers concerned about the risk of getting avian influenza from what they eat? Perhaps your customers have heard about the avian influenza (bird flu) and are concerned about getting the bird flu from eating eggs, or meat from chickens and turkeys. Here’s how you, as a farmer who raises your birds on pasture and processes the birds on your farm, can address their concerns:

Thanks for sharing your concern with me. As your farmer who raises my birds on pasture, I watch my birds for symptoms of pathogenic avian influenza. If I saw symptoms, I would report the situation to “___”. I do not harvest the meat or collect eggs from sick birds.

If your birds are sick or dying in North Carolina, contact one of the following:

• Your local NC Agricultural Extension Agent
• Your local veterinarian
• Call the NC State University Extension Poultry Specialists at 919-515-2621
• Contact the Rollins NC Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory at 919-733-3986
• Reach out to the NC State Veterinarian of the NC Dept. of Agriculture & Consumer Services at 919-707-3250 or by e-mail at VetPoultry@ncagr.gov
• Call the USDA APHIS Veterinary Services Raleigh, NC Office at 919-855-7700 or e-mail them at vsnc@aphis.usda.gov

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Marketing tools and networks

Audience: Farmers

Conflict of interest disclosure: I am currently serving as a Board of Directors for the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association.

• Carolina Farm Stewardship Association is a farmer-driven, organization that helps people in the Carolinas grow and eat local, organic foods. They advocate for fair farm and food policies, build the systems family farms need to thrive, and educate communities about local, organic agriculture.
• The Growing Farmers Podcast interviews farmers from across the country to discuss farm business strategies. The host, farm manager John Suscovich, created the Farm Marketing Solutions to provide resources for those who are looking to expand their farm business as well as those who are wanting to start a farm. His content is humorous, honest, and expresses his true desire to share his hard-won knowledge with fellow farmers.
• The RAFI Just Foods Program develops and expands production, marketing and research opportunities for sustainable and organic farmers. The program also promotes federal policies that support and strengthen sustainable agriculture.

• The NC Agritourism Network Association is comprised of farmers in North Carolina who share best practices in agritourism.
• The Piedmont Grown organization certifies and promotes farm products grown, raised, and made in the North Carolina Piedmont Region. This region has 37 counties and covers the central part of North Carolina. The cities of Hickory, Charlotte, Winston-Salem, High Point, Greensboro, Pinehurst, Sandhills, Durham, Raleigh, and Fayetteville all are in the Piedmont.
• The Southern SAWG empowers and inspires farmers, individuals, and communities in the South to create an agricultural system that is ecologically sound, economically viable, socially just, and humane.

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