Mississippi Association of Cooperatives
(MAC)
July, 2001
In 1938, Louis
Sander's father acquired forty acres of land through President
Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal program. The program allowed Sander's
family to move off of a plantation to their own farm in Mound
Bayou, Mississippi, where he and his eight siblings were raised.
Much hard work enabled Sanders to attend Jackson State University,
where he studied mathematics, a far cry from the farm on which
he had grown up. After graduating, he took a job with IBM working
with military contracts for the ongoing Vietnam War and later
transferred to a computer company in Nebraska.
When his father died in 1972, Sanders began searching for work closer to his Mississippi home. As he searched, however, he detected a disturbing trend: While companies appeared interested in Louis' resume, when he interviewed in person he was told that the advertised job position was filled, though a job with significantly less pay was available. Frustrated with this racist process, Sanders returned to farming with his brother to bide his time until he found a fair job offer. His temporary farm life grew from one month to one year to decades. "I guess I just never stopped farming," Sanders explains.
The farmers of the Mound Bayou area were invested in growing the two major cash crops - cotton and soybeans. In the 1960's, however, a study by Tufts University in the Mississippi Delta revealed that the majority of health problems in the area were due to malnutrition. In response to the study, the Ford Foundation supported a program that would encourage farmers to integrate fresh produce for the community into their fields of cash crops. In order to better market their products, several farmers formed the Mound Bayou Farmer's Cooperative.
Started a few years
ago by a small group of women, the Mileston Farmers Cooperative
Women's Club has expanded into an organization that produces
and markets arts and crafts. The women work together to create
quilts, aprons, napkins, and other crafts, all of which are available
at www.SuperMarketCoop.com.
Women's Club co-founder Ms. Davis states, "Hopefully we
can be successful because we're not gonna give up. It's a good
organization because we meet and we share ideas and we don't
have one person trying to do everything. It's a community effort
where we try to work together."
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Mr. Sanders found himself at one of the cooperative's meeting due to Ronald Thorton, a leader in the new coop. "He was a young, energetic manAt that time, I was young and energetic too, so we gravitated toward one another," Sanders explains. Before he knew it, Louis became deeply involved in the cooperative, particularly enjoying his leadership in the cooperative's Emergency Land Forum, which works to prevent the loss of black-owned farmland.
Mr. Sanders' positive experience with this cooperative led him into a second cooperative in the 90's, a time when farmers were exploring alternatives to cash crops due to the instability of the market. During this time, Wardell Sanders (no relation), who had been trucking vegetables for 30 years, returned home to Mound Bayou with a desire to grow sweet potatoes. Mr. Sanders remembers Wardell's return, "He said the sweet potatoes grown here had a better taste than potatoes grown anywhere else." With help from Alcorn State University, Wardell convinced several farmers, including Mr. Sander's, to grow a test crop of sweet potatoes.
Sanders acknowledges, "Before I started growing sweet potatoes, I wasn't a big fan. It wasn't anything special to me." His niece, however, insisted that he at least try one of his homegrown potatoes: "I'll be honest with you. When my wife finally baked me one of our sweet potatoes, it was so good, I ate the hull. Then I said, 'I'm gonna grow some of these.'" Mr. Sanders expanded his production, as did many other farmers who had tested the crop. In 1995, they formed the Sweet Potato Grower's Association and joined the Mississippi State Association of Cooperatives. The farmers have had mixed success with their crop. Sander's reports, "It's an up and down world. When we've had good seasons, we've had success. Unfortunately, three out of the past five years have been droughts." Prospects look strong this year, however, and the cooperative currently has a relationship with a distributor for Midwestern supermarkets.
Though Sanders is hopeful that the sweet potato market will be a viable alternative to cash crops, he still sees several obstacles for farmers, specifically African-American farmers. First and foremost, there are problems accessing land and resources. What scares him the most, however, is the dwindling labor supply. "Land has gone out of favor with the majority of our people. Farming is not viewed as a viable profession," Sanders reports. He shares a troubling USDA statistic that the average age of the U.S. farmer is 55. Mr. Sanders is 53. Despite these bleak circumstances, Sanders remains optimistic: "I've got lots of hope. Hope springs eternal. Each season, when you see things springing out of the ground, you recognize each year is new and its gonna be different."
So what keeps this man farming? "I guess it could be in my blood. The first commandment God gave man is, 'Here is the earth. Subdue it.' I be attempting to follow that commandment. It's a tricky balance. You don't want to overdue it, but you want to let the land serve you. It's like mining a diamond." Lest Mr. Sanders appear too serious, he offers one more reason for his continued agricultural efforts - "good home cooking!"
Mississippi Association of Cooperatives
Founded over 30 years ago,
the Mississippi Association of Cooperatives (MAC) is an arm of
the Federation of Southern Cooperatives. Currently, MAC is comprised
of 11 local cooperatives, including farming cooperatives, credit
unions, and housing cooperatives. The association works through
advocating for fair policy, raising capital, and allocating money
in the form of direct loans. Their most prominent concern, however,
is to be responsive to their farmer's needs. When farmers articulated
the need for processing facilities, MAC got to work - raising
to date over $5 million for 4 value-added processing plants.