|
January 11, 2000
Delta Community Harvests Sustainability in Sweet Potatoes
The Enterprise Corporation of the Delta provides capital for vital community development in rural
Mississippi town.
SocialFunds.com --
In the community of Glendora, Mississippi, 74.1 percent of the people live in poverty. The typical
resident has less than a ninth grade education and travels more than 60 miles to work in a casino,
chicken factory, or catfish plant. That was until last year, when the Glendora Economic and
Community Development Corporation launched a sweet-potato growing project.
 The new project was made possible through a working
capital loan from the Enterprise Corporation of the Delta (ECD), a private, tax-exempt business
development organization working to improve the quality of life for Delta residents. The
Mississippi River Delta region of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi is one of the most
economically distressed in the U.S., plagued by low education levels, out-migration, limited
resources, and racial inequalities that are the legacy of plantation agriculture.
Last
year ECD made financial commitments of over $7 million to Delta businesses, such as a childcare
center in Arkansas and a charter bus company in Louisiana, but Glendora was special. “In this
case, ECD is helping an entire community, not just one business,” said Ray Williams, Program
Officer. “The people of Glendora are using their only resources, abundant land and labor, to
develop a better economy.”
Since 1982, the Glendora Economic and Community
Development Corporation (CDC) has worked to revitalize this community of 330 residents.
They’ve established family housing, a library, a community center, a summer camp, a daycare,
and a food pantry. They’ve obtained grants for water, sewer, and street improvement projects.
But local jobs remain scarce.
“We need to employ our people at home in
Glendora,” said Johnny B. Thomas, Glendora’s mayor and director of the Glendora CDC.
“With ECD’s help, we can succeed.” Despite the determination and hard work of
this community visionary, who works in the sweet potatoes with his neighbors and gets paid last, if
at all, Thomas directs all credit to hard-working staff and volunteers.
In the fall of
1999, the first year of the sweet potato project, the CDC harvested 65 acres of potatoes, a good
first crop producing new jobs for the community. They hope to harvest 150 acres this year, and
eventually to purchase 500 acres for additional crops and related industries that will boost the
town’s economy.
Lucrative alternative crops such as sweet potatoes and greens are
well suited to Glendora, according to Jesse Harness of the Alcorn State University Cooperative
Extension program, which provided technical assistance and funding for operating support. The crops
will provide a window of opportunity for rejuvenating a town left high and dry by the mechanization
of multinational agribusiness corporations.
Ohio-based distributor, Glory Foods, will
purchase Glendora’s sweet potato crop and market it to outlets such as Albertson’s and
Wal-mart, but the town will not stop there. “We are also looking at producing sweet potato
chips, frozen patties, maybe even a new cereal,” said Mayor Thomas.
The Glendora
project provides a stunning example of how community development financial institutions (CDFIs) can
support sustainable development in rural communities through working capital loans. By forging
strategic partnerships with key actors from the private, public, and non-profit sectors, such as
the recent $5 million investment from Entergy, the global energy distribution company, ECD promotes
the development of the Delta’s valuable human and economic assets.
Mayor Thomas sees
the Glendora of the future as “a community that has pulled itself up by its bootstraps, that
is living on its own, without having to beg all the time: a community that has created its own
sustainability.” As such it will be a model for the 1.6 million residents of other
communities struggling for economic survival in the Delta.
www.ecd.org
©
SRI World Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Top
| 
