Farmers Rising Non-Profit Shows Determination During Funding Crisis

Regional Farmer Training Leader Moves Forward Despite Challenges

Farmers Rising, formerly known as Angelic Organics Learning Center, has helped build the local food sector in the Chicago region over decades with training programs that enable beginning and early-stage farmers to survive and thrive.

The organization is currently weathering the storm brewed up in Washington, D.C. by the Trump administration's abrupt, unfair, and destructive actions to freeze, cut and gut valuable programs aimed at small farmers who are working to create a better and more sustainable food system.

Farmers Rising is a partner in the federal Local Food Purchase Assistance (LFPA) cooperative agreement, known in this state as IL-EATS. It is one of 15 intermediary organizations around the state that receive food from farmers in historically underserved communities that is then delivered to food banks to help the needy who face food insecurity and hunger.

It is as virtuous a local food program as anyone could dream up. But it has been targeted for freezes and termination, putting many farmers at severe financial risk while denying healthy locally produced food to needy and food insecure people.

Jackie de Batista, Farmers Rising's executive director and a 4th generation livestock farmer, spoke powerfully about these impacts during an Illinois Stewardship Alliance webinar held on Wednesday in concert with the Farmer Day of Action event. This Local Food Forum article shares her comments and the Alliance's calls to action.

There is also a reminder that through April, 20 percent of the proceeds from all new paid subscriptions to Local Food Forum will go directly to Farmers Rising.