The value of farming: Multifaceted wealth generation through cooperative development

Abstract

The Attala County Self‐Help Cooperative, based in Mississippi, United States, formed with the intention of helping rural African American farmers utilize their land resources and enhance their farm productivity. Productivity is central to the activities of the cooperative. Yet, its members emphasize other forms of wealth that farming sustains, including self‐reliance, the maintenance of a Black agrarian lifestyle, the support and development of a local community, and the social valuation of Black farmers. From this perspective, the cooperative is more than a means to resist or compete within an exploitative system. The cooperative generates wealth‐in‐people as an alternative value system formed around farming, community, and the Black farmer.