Strengthening the Movement
Michael Fields Agricultural Institute- East Troy, WI
Big social movements need certain conditions met to be effective in making policy change. For example, they need sufficient resources, well-trained and continually emergent advocates, and a grassroots base that can be activated when needed. MFAI supports the sustainable agriculture movement by strengthening capacity in areas where MFAI identifies needs and where we have a particular capacity to offer.
For many years, MFAI’s Policy Program has coordinated the movement’s annual grassroots appropriations campaign, seeking to optimize funding of programs chosen as priorities by members of the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC).
It is insufficient to secure federal appropriations if the movement doesn’t use these resources optimally to advance its goals. MFAI offers workshop training in grantwriting and use of federal resources. Our program offering grantwriting assistance for socially disadvantaged farmers is currently without funding for nationwide implementation. We also coordinate a multi-agency team to produce and distribute an updated sequel to the 146-page guide to federal programs, Building Better Rural Places, which will be called Building Sustainable Places. The guides address program resources in community development; sustainable land management; and value-added and diversified agriculture and forestry.
The sustainable agriculture movement needs to cultivate new advocates of diverse cultural backgrounds and skills. MFAI’s policy internship program and related work help them gain a foothold in the movement’s varied advocacy positions. We train two spring policy interns per year, with occasional additional interns for summer or other shorter periods over the project’s three-year period.
MFAI’s appropriations campaign and other federal and state policy work depend on having grassroots supporters it can educate in a timely way. MFAI makes it a priority to build the broadest possible grassroots support base for key national organizations like NSAC as well as in MFAI, particularly the database that NSAC and MFAI use for the appropriations campaign.
Annual Campaign for Federal Sustainable Agriculture Funding
The sustainable agriculture movement benefits from increased federal funding to its priority programs. These programs advance the goals imbedded in sustainable agriculture, such as increased use of resource-conserving production practices, better markets for farmers using such practices, and better access for consumers of all income levels to safe, affordable, nutritious food.
As the nation struggles through the current economic recession, public focus has increased on the nation’s precarious fiscal situation. But for more than 15 years, MFAI’s Policy Program Director, Margaret Krome, has grappled with federal budgets and appropriation as coordinator of the annual grassroots appropriations campaign for the sustainable agriculture movement. In recent years, the federal budget and appropriations processes have grown more tumultuous, and sustainable agriculture programs repeatedly have been endangered, with rare opportunities for funding increases arising. The movement only can protect existing programs and create funding gains if it has a strategic and disciplined campaign flexible enough to react quickly to changing circumstances.
For many years, Ms. Krome coordinated this appropriations campaign under the auspices of the National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture, and before that, for the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. With the merger of those two groups in January, 2009 creating the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC), this campaign’s objective became maximizing funding for federal programs set as priorities by NSAC members.
Specifically, for Fiscal Year 2010, our six priorities are the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program, Value Added Producer Grant (VAPG) program; (top two priorities), Appropriate Technology Transfer for Rural Areas (ATTRA), Organic Production and Marketing Data Collection Initiative, Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP), and the new Rural Microentrepreneur Assistance Program.
Our campaign involves several stages and strategies. It begins with a careful and democratic priority-setting process every January, including a biennial survey of sustainable agriculture stakeholder groups. Continuing our long tradition of democratic stakeholder priority-setting, under NSAC’s structure, the Policy Council will be the body that considers all factors and chooses appropriations priorities. We will aim for six programs, with two as high priorities, as described above for this year’s campaign.
Having set priorities, we then coordinate an extensive and targeted grassroots education campaign through action alerts sent to sustainable agriculture supporters in key states and districts of members of House and Senate Appropriations Agriculture Subcommittee members. and We hire phone callers to conduct follow-up calls to supporters to reinforce the message of our alerts. Sometimes we coordinate sign-on letters for our priority programs, or we might conduct a summer fly-in, where we bring farmer stakeholders to Washington, D.C., to meet with top Administration officials as they set budgets for the following year, as well as agricultural appropriators. We also encourage grassroots stakeholders to write opinion editorials and other media pieces to support our campaign.
Read more about House and Senate Appropriations Agriculture Subcommittee.
National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition
MFAI’s policy program engages in collaborations at the federal, state and local levels. A crucial partner in federal policy is the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, which was created in January, 2009 as the result of a merger between the National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture and the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. With more than 70 member groups and an outstanding track record of policy successes, NSAC is located in Washington, D.C. and leads the sustainable agriculture movement’s federal policy work.
Read more about NSAC
MFAI Workshops on Grantwriting and Federal Funding
It is insufficient to secure federal appropriations if the sustainable agriculture movement doesn’t use them optimally to advance its goals. MFAI offers federal funding workshops on three main topics: 1) designing effective projects; 2) identifying programs suited to one’s needs; and 3) grantwriting basics. We conduct workshops around the nation, ranging from 1.5 hours to six hours, depending on the needs of the sponsoring group. Workshop participants rate these workshops highly; in recent years an average of 97% of participants said the workshops have either met or exceeded their expectations.
At each workshop, we provide participants with handouts, including our 146-page guide to federal programs, Building Better Rural Places, of which we are finalizing a revised version, reflecting program changes and new programs authorized in the 2008 Farm Bill. The new guide, Building Sustainable Places will be released early summer, 2009; like the current version, it will be available for download on the ATTRA website, or can be obtained by calling ATTRA at 1-800-346-9140.
MFAI Policy Internship Program
Many of the movement’s longstanding organizers and policy leaders are approaching retirement, and the movement needs to cultivate new activists of diverse cultural backgrounds and skills. MFAI’s policy internship program helps prospective leaders gain a foothold in the movement’s varied advocacy positions. We offer two five-month policy internships every spring, which include a comprehensive orientation program, work on our federal, state, and local policy initiatives, participation in major conferences in Wisconsin and elsewhere, and a two-week period of work interning with the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition in their offices in Washington, D.C. We expect interns to move to Madison, Wisconsin to
Announcement of our spring policy internships is typically made in late September, and applications are due in early November. In some years, we consider summer applicants who approach us during the winter or spring. Our internships are quite competitive. Successful applicants come from a wide range of backgrounds. The top selection criterion is a candidate’s clarity of purpose that they seek a career in sustainable agriculture policy, followed by the quality of their writing and communications, and strong recommendations from three references. We actively encourage applicants of color to apply.
We will announce our 2010 Internship in September, 2009.
Read our 2008 Policy Internship Announcement
Building the Sustainable Agriculture Movement’s Grassroots Support Base
Policy gains of the sustainable agriculture movement offer inspiring examples of representative democracy’s power to change markets, culture and essential social structures. But only a fraction of the movement’s passionate adherents actually receive MFAI or National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) action alerts on policy initiatives, and many supporters’ contact information is outdated. The situation is improving from the sustainable agriculture movement’s limited database of supporters a few years ago but needs continued efforts.
In Wisconsin, MFAI’s Policy Program encourages participants in our workshops to sign up to receive action MFAI’s newsletters and action alerts. We also encourage them to receive NSAC’s alerts and updates.
Nationally, MFAI works with the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition and others to identify supporters who are interested in receiving our action alerts and updates of information. We encourage groups who want to help build the movement’s grassroots power to assist us by building our database; we have written explanations to include in their own newsletters, encouraging their members to go to NSAC’s website to sign up to receive this information. We also are exploring several Internet-based base-building strategies.