Excerpts from The World Wildlife Fund's press release, The Next California Phase II: Preparing for Action
Date: 04 June 2024
Author: Julia Kurnik
Our food supply chain is facing critical pressures and an uncertain future. California produces more than two-thirds of the fruits and nuts grown in the US and nearly half of all its vegetables. But due to climate change, water availability, and other factors, depending on California for all that food is increasingly unsustainable.
More than a decade ago, WWF’s Markets Institute identified this growing uncertainty in domestic food production as both a challenge and an opportunity. We set out to find “the next California,” a place to build a sustainable and equitable commercial-level specialty crop industry. We settled on the Mid-Mississippi Delta (western Tennessee, northwestern Mississippi, and eastern Arkansas) as a spot that could ease the pressure on California, avoid converting natural lands to farmland elsewhere in the country, and create an equitable engine of local growth.
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In partnership with AgLaunch, we built an Advisory Council of diverse stakeholders across the region to inform and drive the work. In parallel, we completed research into three areas: (1) preparing for commercial-level production of specialty crops in the Mid-Delta, (2) developing more diverse, equitable, and inclusive business models from farm to table, and (3) linking specialty crop producers, input suppliers, and downstream processors to innovative business models and finance mechanisms.
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In January 2024, Hallie Shoffner, a Next California Advisory Council member and a sixth-generation Arkansas farmer, launched Delta Harvest to develop and promote high-quality US-grown specialty rice products. Delta Harvest is working with Black and women farmers across the Mid-Delta to build, test, and scale an easier-to-transition crop that can increase profits to farmers, open new markets for the region, and provide more nutritious and environmentally friendly grains to consumers.
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While the impetus for the effort has been shifting food production, it is now also about building something new in the Mid-Delta – an equitable and sustainable farming system that serves as an engine of economic development.
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