The Cluster Organizing and Development Program houses SAAFON’s farmer-to-farmer organizing methodology, which focuses on building and strengthening sustainable connections between farmers.
For more than a decade, SAAFON has ideated around what could be possible when farmers are organized together across our region. Inspired by the long history of Southern farmer organizing as represented in the work of institutions like the Mississippi Association of Cooperatives, and the farmer-to international agroecology movement, we are experimenting with a methodology that is rooted in a Black Southern agrarian politic.
In 2022, SAAFON launched the Cluster Development Pilot, which was designed to address farmers’ needs facing physical, material, and spiritual distances in the region. The Cluster Organizing and Development Program sprouted from this 18-month pilot, and was designed to help foster farmer-to-farmer engagement across our network.
SAAFON’s clusters represent groups of farmers who share general interest, geographical proximity, and/or a shared market, which allows for mobilizing resources, cultivating farmer exchange, and building ongoing relationships. Organizing in this way fosters trust, and makes mutual aid, resource sharing, and collective strategy more possible, which ultimately supports farm viability, and disrupts disconnection and isolation.
Farmers in the cross-network cluster focused on fiber gathered in person in Oaxaca, Mexico to connect and learn about scaled natural dye processing.
In 2022, SAAFON launched the Cluster Development Pilot, which was designed to address farmers’ needs facing physical, material, and spiritual distances in the region. The Cluster Organizing and Development Program sprouted. This 18-month pilot, and was designed to help foster farmer-to-farmer engagement across our network.
SAAFON’s Clusters Development Pilot tested our methodology in four geographies in the Southeastern United States and U.S. Virgin Islands, anchored by experienced farmers committed to ecologically sustainable practices:
- The U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI) Cluster (Anchor: Mrs. Yvette Browne of Sejah Farms in St. Croix, USVI)
- The Gulf Coast Mississippi Cluster (Anchors: James Franklin of the 34th Street Wholistic Gardens & Education Center in Gulfport)
- The Eastern Piedmont – North Carolina Cluster (Anchor: Baba Bernard Obie of Abanitu Farms, Roxboro)
- The Central Savannah River Area (CSRA) – Georgia Cluster (Anchor: Loretta and Sam Adderson of Adderson’s Fresh Produce in Augusta)
- The Cross Network Cluster for farmers across the region, focused on fiber and natural dye production (Anchored by Keisha Cameron of High Hog Farm, in Grayson, Georgia)
Each cluster was provided with a resourced organizer who was embedded within their community, and a collective grant to support shared infrastructure or experiences, which infused facilitation capacity and financial investment into each group. Although the 18-month pilot sunset in 2023, it produced many learnings and opportunities for refinement, which seeded the development of our ongoing Cluster Organizing and Development Program. Visionary growth of this program over the next few years includes connecting more long-term financial resources to clusters, including shared equipment, enterprise development, and professional services, and expanding our reach outside of the initial locations.