Tobacco Communities Reinvestment Fund

PROGRAM IMPACTS

IMPACTS:

The Tobacco Communities Reinvestment Fund is making strides to assist farmers and rural communities replace lost tobacco income with income from viable, new agricultural enterprises. By enabling entrepreneurship, the Reinvestment Fund is providing the tools necessary for farms to transition into sustainable businesses that will continue to contribute to the rural economy for years to come.
In 1997, RAFI created the Reinvestment Fund to help farmers adjust to changes in the tobacco industry. Using RAFI cost-share and technical support, farmers and community groups have developed 89 new agricultural initiatives in 34 North Carolina counties, which demonstrate new ways to replace tobacco income.

Creation of these initiatives has meant investment in the future of agriculture in North Carolina. Through RAFI’s cost-share support, redirection of farmer resources, other foundation and government grant support, and loans leveraged by farmers, the Reinvestment Fund initiatives have put $2.3million into alternative agricultural enterprises that work. These investments have helped farmers to sustainably utilize available local resources to take advantage of existing opportunities to create new enterprise.

Two-thirds of past project participants have been successful at integrating the new initiatives into their existing farm operation to create a viable farm business. Successful farmers are now earning 19% of their farm income from the new initiatives, resulting in a more diversified set of income streams for the farms and greater employment security for the farmers. The Reinvestment Fund initiatives are helping to ensure the continued opportunity for farm employment for more than 412 farmers and farm workers and have led to the creation of 34 new farm jobs.

The Reinvestment Fund enhances rural communities and protects family farms by developing initiatives which generate new farm income, create new jobs, and protect natural resources. The Reinvestment Fund is successful, because it provides the tools that farmers need to best take advantage of the resources and opportunities that are available to them on the farm. RAFI’s small investments in cost-share and technical support today have proven critical in enabling agricultural entrepreneurship, which will strengthen family farms and enhance rural communities long into the future.

The Agriculture Reinvestment Report outlines a strategy for sustaining income and jobs in rural communities through investment in existing farm businesses. The report documents the role that direct-investment in farmer innovation can play in assisting rural, farm enterprises to transition to more profitable, sustainable models. View the report (PDF, 2M)

SUCCESS: Grass-fed Beef in Eastern North Carolina

Larry Harris has farmed his entire life. Tobacco and peanuts were a mainstay on his Edgecombe County farm until recently when changes in the federal programs and low commodity prices for other farm products forced him to look elsewhere for income. The end of the federal tobacco system in 2004 could have been the death blow for the family farm if Harris and his son-in-law, Patrick Robinette, hadn’t been working on something new.

In 2002, Harris and Robinette bought some cows and started down the road on what some considered an unlikely enterprise for North Carolina—grass-fed beef. Most North Carolina cattle producers raise their calves to 500 or 600 pounds, then sell them on the livestock market or ship them to the Mid-west to be finished on corn and grains in giant feedlots. This system earns producers $100 or so profit per calf, meaning it takes a lot of calves and a lot of acreage to make a living. Harris and Robinette had a different idea to earn a decent livelihood on their modest-sized farm. To do that, they had to buck the old system and think about raising beef cattle in a different way. That led them to grass-fed beef, which in turn led them to a cost-share grant from RAFI’s Tobacco Communities Reinvestment Fund.

Robinette’s experience in the cattle industry had a lot to do with the choice to move towards grass-fed cattle. “I managed a feedlot in Nebraska and took part in the feeding practices there,” Robinette explained. “Every day we had to feed antibiotics and every other day we had to feed a calcium source. That was for the acidosis that formed by feeding corn.” In Harris and Robinette’s grass-fed operation, the cows only eat fresh, green grass with supplemental hay when needed. “Today we never have a sick cow or calf,” Robinette continues. “We haven’t found any parasites and the cattle are just more docile, now.”

And the bottom-line has improved. Harris and Robinette have gone from a $120 per head profit to $1,400 per head. That means that they can once again think about making a living from their modest-sized farm. Also, as demand for their healthier product continues to grow, Harris and Robinette have brought on two other growers to help them with the supply. Still, they struggle to keep up with their customers’ needs. “We are currently offering a waiting list of four months for our beef,” Robinette stated.

return to Tobacco Communities Initiatives page