Indian Springs Farmers Association

From its beginning, Indian Springs grew modestly from 8 to nearly 50 members, primarily through word of mouth. Ben recalls, “I guess people found out about what we were doing, and other farmers said, ‘I believe I’ll join that.’ We don’t have active efforts to recruit members, but we need to start doing that. Maybe through the churches, or up in community halls.”

A key milestone came in 1996 with the building of the packing facility. “We needed a way to wash, grade, and package our commodities,” recalls Ben. “We knew it would create four to five jobs. We didn’t know it was going to be as long, drawn-out, and complicated a process as it was, but we never gave up. Well, we almost gave up once.”

The entire effort ultimately would require seven years of arduous planning and fundraising. They assembled some funding from the state of Mississippi, some from the federal government, and some from their own pockets. Another important contribution (about 10%) came from a low-interest operating loan from the Federation of Southern Cooperatives, an organization that now has under its umbrella 35 co-ops representing 12,000 African American farmers.

Since then, Indian Springs’ operations and membership have remained relatively stable. “We went up as high as 48 members,” says Ben. “We have 32 active members now.”

Yet stability in the volatile co-op world is often seen as success, and Indian Springs has become one of the stars of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives. Ben, who has been working for the Federation on and off since 1988, was recently elected its President. And the Federation’s staff in Mississippi has grown over this period from 1 to 11.

One part of the cooperative philosophy that Indian Springs takes very seriously is helping develop other cooperatives. “We do a lot of co-op to co-op trading. We find out about each other through the Federation of Southern Cooperatives, the annual meeting.” Ben cites as an example the Beat-4 Co-op in his area, with African American, white, and Choctaw farmers. “We sent them watermelon seeds and other supplies when they started up to help them get enough supplies for farmers to work for themselves. They are about the same age, and now they sell things to us. We do co-op to co-op trading all the time.”

This cooperation extends internationally. The Federation of Southern Cooperatives has long reached out to Africa, South America, the former Soviet Union, and recently the Virgin Islands. Through grants from USAID, they provide technical assistance to other agricultural cooperatives. Indian Springs has reached out to “sister cooperatives” elsewhere in the world, such as Gambia, Senegal, and Zimbabwe, and hosts international farmers who visit Mississippi. “I just enjoy traveling myself,” says Ben. “I never would have thought I would have been fortunate enough to travel all these places.”

For Ben, the learning goes both ways. “When I came back from these trips, I designed my own irrigation system and drip irrigation system in 1989. Now we have seven systems around the area like mine. That’s all from me learning from the land grant college in Israel for six weeks, where I did a bunch of research. We found out we can grow just about anything in the south of Mississippi. We don’t have to be confined to traditional southern crops.”