Farmers
Exchange
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Women farmers from New Mexico visited counterparts in Mississippi and were impressed with the flat expanses of farmland in the south in contrast to the small rocky plots they work at home. The New Mexico farmers in turn have the asset of an eager market for locally grown food and know they can sell as much as they can produce. They expect to adopt the small homemade hoop houses they saw at a school garden in Mississippi for some of their smaller sites, and they got ideas for food processing equipment from visiting Alcorn State University's plant in Marks. The exchange was enthusiastic. The sites are providing training in such topics as soil analysis and increasing yield in their respective places.



One of the participating Mississippi groups is the Mississippi Delta Southern Rural Black Women in Agriculture, a women's farming cooperative, which is working with partners to develop a food hub, with space to store food, operate a community kitchen and distribute produce and products to markets. The organizer Gloria Sturdevant (left) leads our group on tour of the site.