What Oxfam is Doing
- Preserving a Living for Familiy Farmers
- Protecting Workers' Rights
- Supporting Native Americans Affected by Mining
PRESERVING A LIVING FOR FAMILY FARMERS
Oxfam is tackling rural poverty and injustice in American fields, Native American reservations, corporate boardrooms, and the halls of government.
US agriculture is rapidly being consolidated and increasingly being controlled by a few large corporate agribusinesses. As small farmers are forced out of business, the US is losing producers of top-quality food and some of its best stewards of the environment.
Oxfam supports groups representing family farmers and minority farmers who face discrimination and other forms of injustice. We help these groups fight to get farmers paid a fair price for their produce. We also support research and advocacy in agricultural and trade policy to promote fair terms for farmers, both here and abroad.
Since the 2002 Farm Bill, Oxfam has worked with partners to wage the Campaign for a Just Food and Farm Policy. The Campaign advocates for equitable access to credit, as well as the development of programs and policies to meet the needs of family and minority farmers. The group also builds bridges between family farmers in the US and other countries to fight unfair trade policies.
On a local level, Oxfam funds partners seeking to create new markets and to meet the changing marketplace demands in the globalizing economy.
Case-in-point: Collaborating to Meet Marketplace Demands
In 2002, two Oxfam partners, Massachusetts-based Red Tomato and the Federation of Southern Cooperatives based in the Southeast, entered into a groundbreaking partnership. Red Tomato worked with Federation growers in Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia to introduce the seedless watermelon into their product lines, and to build their skills for growing and marketing watermelons on a commercial scale. This on-going win-win endeavor has generated much-needed income for southern minority farmers and enabled Red Tomato to market watermelons before local watermelons were ready. This project continues to grow every year. In 2004, Red Tomato sold approximately 420,000 pounds of Southern-grown watermelons in Northeast markets.
