Loans Help Farmers Market Food

By Coral Sisk, WHF Associate

Farms equal food. When local farmers provide food for their communities they help make fresh nutritious foods an easier choice for people wanting to lead healthier lives. The Humanlinks Foundation, in conjunction with Banner Bank, recently began an innovative micro-finance program that encourages aspiring Washington farmers to strengthen their local farming communities. This program does the remarkable—it empowers small farmers or local farmer want-to-bes with a small, but critical amount of capital in the form of a micro-loan at a favorable interest rate. These loans can be used to start a farm or expand an already existing agriculture enterprise. Studies show that micro-financing has one of the lowest default rates as a loan program and creates an equal playing field for entrepreneurship throughout most social-economic levels.

More local farmers equal more fresh produce. This effort by Humanlinks and Banner Bank provides one model for encouraging a sustainable and healthy Washington State by granting small farmers the financial ability to produce more fresh food for our communities. The consumption of such foods decreases the risk of chronic disease. Rapidly increasing amounts of farmland across the nation are disappearing due to rising costs in agriculture. Small farmers without access to favorable credit have had a tough timekeeping up with production needs. But now Washington State has an opportunity to preserve precious farmland that will be utilized by hardworking farmers to produce food. Visit www.humanlinksfoundation.org for more details on how to take advantage of this loan program and help spread the word to aspiring agriculture entrepreneurs or farming communities in Washington State.

Want to get involved? The Healthiest Communities Partnership with help from the Washington State Department of Health is reaching out to communities across the state to build a broad-based public/private partnership to prevent chronic diseases. It is all about exploring together the best ways to make healthy choices about diet, exercise and tobacco the easy choices. To learn more about the Healthiest Communities Partnership, click here.

More data can be found on the DOH website:

http://www.doh.wa.gov/cfh/NutritionPA/facts_and_figures/worksite_data/default.htm.

(Note: Data are from 2005 and 2006 and cover access to healthy foods as well as access to places to be physically active in Washington.)