By Frances Madeson
Nation of Change
A little over a year ago Abrianni Perry, a 28-year-old transplant from Houston, came to Cooperation Jackson to learn about cooperatives from people who’ve been doing it for decades. She’s been happily plunging her hands into the rich West Jackson, Mississippi ever since.
“It’s a beautiful thing to be able to feed your community, especially in a food desert,” she says as she works the seven acres of the Fannie Lou Hamer Community Land Trust’s Freedom Farm in anticipation of the fall growing season. “The dirt is soft, and when it’s wet I feel like a little kid making mud pies. When a nice breeze comes by, and a cloud provides shade, it’s like God kissed you on the forehead.”
Like the land trust itself, the farm is named for Hamer, a 20th century community organizer, civil rights leader and icon of resistance. Among other major initiatives, Hamer organized Mississippi Delta sharecroppers, and created the Freedom Farm Cooperative in 1969.
This summer Freedom Farm yielded two tons of melons and veggies, about double last year’s total — which was harmed by a particularly hot growing season. “This year we adjusted by putting shading over the plants,” Perry explained. “But if climate change continues, how will we have food from the gardens? Everything is burning up.”
Image Credit: Jason Kerzinski
The program is one of many run by Cooperation Jackson (CJ), a cooperative federation and solidarity economy catalyzer co-founded in Jackson in 2014 by Kali Akuno and Sacajawea Hall. Funded through coop member dues, grants, major donors and money earned from selling the harvest at a fair price.
Image Credit: Jason Kerzinski
CJ’s food sovereignty program hopes to produce sufficient food to feed 25,000 mostly working class African-Americans. Along with the main farming operation, a coop grocery store, café, food truck and joint aquaponics and hydroponics installation are in the works.
Fighting food deserts
According to the Mississippi Food Network the state leads the nation in hunger, and the county where Cooperation Jackson is located is an epicenter with “more hungry people in Hinds County (61,720) alone than in the entire state of North Dakota (55,710)”; and food deserts, mapped by the University of Mississippi Medical Center, are prevalent in both rural areas and urban centers like West Jackson. Urban food deserts are defined as areas where citizens must traverse more than a mile to reach a grocery store, where low income limits their purchasing power, and where residents lack adequate transportation to get to their nearest store. According to Kali Akuno, CJ’s co-founder, the number of grocery stores operational in Jackson has dropped to 15 total and none are within walking distance of West Jackson where many people have no vehicles or Internet access and limited and spotty access to public transportation […]
The Most Revolutionary Act 