More than 820 million people around the world don’t have enough to eat, many in rural areas. While the idea of farmers going hungry may seem counterintuitive, over reliance on monoculture cash crops like coffee or cacao, rising costs of inputs and food, and the effects of climate change have left millions vulnerable to extreme food scarcity.
We believe the time is ripe for a TransFARMation – a reimagining of how farming families interact with food and secure their futures. Our goal is to help rural coffee-growing communities disrupt the global food system, and create thriving local food hubs and economies.
In support of our TransFARMation campaign, the Nell Newman Foundation has awarded Food 4 Farmers a $20,000 matching grant to provide key new investments across our food security programs this year. We’re excited about this new partnership, and we’re eager to leverage this grant to grow our network of advocates to help coffee farmers lead the way in growing healthy, fresh food, and build a food sovereign future for their communities. (Contribute to the campaign now.)
The families we work with struggle with overwhelming challenges: environmental degradation, economic depletion, and cultural loss – all resulting from low coffee prices and a limited ability to create a more sustainable future. At the same time, a flood of cheap, nutrient-deficient, calorie-rich food, trucked or flown into rural communities, has created local food deserts, and has left farming families malnourished. Even in good years, coffee is not enough for small-scale farmers, and most in our partner communities experience an average of 3 to 5 months of food scarcity, year after year.
Food 4 Farmers envisions a world where everyone has enough nutritious food, every day. We are committed to finding long-term solutions to seasonal hunger alongside our partner communities. Our approach builds the capacity of coffee-farming families to transform their farms into diversified, environmentally-sustainable agricultural hubs, and produce healthy food year round, to feed everyone in their communities.
Thanks to this matching grant from the Nell Newman Foundation, we’ve set a goal of $60,000. We’ve already reached $40,000 and need to raise $20,000 before the end of 2019. Help us meet the challenge.
