Project Offset

 

A growing need worldwide is access to sustainable food sources that are affordable and equitable. With rising costs in food and limited availability of healthy foods, more and more people are becoming food insecure in the United States, though we are the wealthiest country in the world. 

 

While businesses made record profits during the Covid-19 pandemic (Brookings, 2022), little of that trickled down to the lower classes as inflation has outpaced wage gains. This has led to severe food cost increases to the tune of up to almost 11 percent year over year from 2022 to 2023 (US Department of Agriculture, 2023). According to the Food Industry Association, a recent poll showed that 43 percent of surveyed Americans stated that they were not sure if they would have enough money to buy food (2023). 

 

This recent crisis tells us a few different things: 1) the state of the food industry is highly unstable; 2) inflation and corporate greed are creating economic turmoil for the average American; and 3) something must be done about it. That is where organizations like ours hope to make a difference. Project Offset seeks funding to address these issues and climate change concerns through initiatives across the country, starting first in Arkansas. 

 

Our first project will build a food forest that will provide free, organic food including protein, vegetables, and carbohydrates, to a rural region in Arkansas. After the project is stable, we will leave it to key stakeholders in the region to maintain it, and move forward to other regions to build food forests there, as well. We hope to build out these food forests for years to come to provide healthy food to communities and improve their environments through the carbon emissions sequestration that plants offer. 

 

The total cost of the first year of the project, including all capital costs to purchase land and build the forest, will be $1.42 million. We will seek support from a variety of sources to fund the project, including federal and state grants, foundation and corporation support, individual donors and interested investors.

 

 

Project Offset is a Non-Profit DBA under Players Philanthropy Fund, which acts as its fiscal sponsor giving us our 501(c)3 Charity status. Our mission is to create balance between nature and humanity. Our goal is to produce free, organic, healthy agricultural products, in addition to educating underserved populations on the importance of nutrition, environmental sustainability, and enhancing our communities. As we are a brand-new organization in implementation phase, we have partnered with several community leaders to help market our organization and our upcoming projects. We are working to establish communication with local and national foundations that have an interest in food forests and food insecurity measures. 

 

Our organization was founded by Tiffany Chavez, a previous entrepreneur and project manager with years of experience in project management. Both executive directors, Sonya Waddle and Inica Teran, have a background in business and project management, along with social media and marketing expertise. The organization currently is run by a 100 percent female staff and board, with 25 percent of them Hispanic. All of them have experience in the work they plan to do for food insecure people, having all grown up in poverty. Their interest in agricultural and environmental justice empowered them to start Project Offset. The growing concerns regarding a lack of organic agriculture and a lapse of availability for organic products in the market spurred its creation.

 

 

The number of food insecure Americans continues to remain elevated as inflation and supply chain issues impact those experiencing poverty. Currently, 54 million Americans including 18 million children are food insecure (Hunger Free America, 2020).  Inflation for the lowest income households currently runs higher than any other group in the United States, making it harder to purchase groceries and other necessities (World Economic Forum, 2022). The supply chain cautions that consumer prices will remain high due to contract terms that were set with suppliers before disinflation efforts, as well as companies’ desire to maintain profits (CNBC, 2023).

 

Over the next 12 months, we expect to see the need for food services increase as inflation continues to drive up food prices and prevent people from affording necessities. As a result, US economists warn that growing inequality has harmful consequences that could see a weakening of democracy and a rise in authoritarianism (“The US Inequality Debate,” Council on Foreign Relations, 2022). Organizations like ours are doing our part to not only meet basic needs of the poor, but to help empower them. This is why we have an amazing opportunity to change the ways of the organic food industry.

 

Our need for funding is to create our first permaculture food forest in Pea Ridge, Arkansas. Food forests, unlike conventional agriculture, mimic the natural growth of the forest, and are designed to be resilient and not have to be replanted every year. Like a forest, food forests consist of several layers of plants that all work together to continue their ecosystem. There are large and small trees, shrubs, bushes, and ground cover. All these layers have the potential to grow in tandem a host of healthy fruits, nuts, vegetables and herbs that will reproduce on their own every year. Food forests, therefore, are incredibly sustainable when designed properly and maintained. They are a win-win for communities looking to grow food security and improve their environments.

 

Currently, 17 percent of Arkansans live below the poverty line, and an additional 24 percent earn above the poverty limit but do not earn a livable wage for their counties of residence. Additionally, 41 percent of the Arkansas population live in rural communities, with 358 of the 686 census tracts in Arkansas living farther than one mile in an urban area and ten miles in a rural area from the nearest grocery store (Arkansas Center for Health Improvement, 2019). 

 

We plan to start our food forest in the South as the region is rural with a high level of food insecure children and adults. Arkansas' carbon emissions equal 63.9 million metric tons, making it 29th in the country for emissions (US Energy Information Administration, 2023). The land we plan to use is prime for planting vegetables, fruits, and for housing chickens for egg production. The project will not only improve food access for the community but improve the quality of the land and environment overall. Reducing carbon is critical to improving the atmosphere and reducing climate change effects. Plants work to sequester carbon dioxide emissions in the air and use that to fuel the production of their own food (Berkeley Lab, 2021). More plants, therefore, equals less carbon dioxide in the air. 

 

The project will require the purchase of 10 acres of land. The forest will be designed so that each location in the food forest will have specific plant guilds. A guild is a grouping of plants that work well together in an ecosystem to produce the optimum level of quality and quantity. Within the food forest, we will produce an irrigation system that will support the plant life and animal life. We plan to house bees in beekeeping stations, as well as creating a butterfly garden, to help pollinate the plants. Building the food forest will be supported by staff, contractors, and community volunteers.

 

As it takes time to plant, grow, and harvest plants for consumption, it will take two growing seasons to start offering free produce and begin excepting membership subscriptions from the community. We will work together with local nonprofit organizations and government agencies in the region to get this food to the public. Eventually, we will want to leave the food forest in the hands of the key stakeholders in the community to maintain and build upon themselves. This will enable us to move to different regions and scale our work to serve several communities in need in the United States. As we do this, we will adapt our food forest model to best serve the climate and cultural needs of each community.

 

 

Ultimately, our goal with the food forest is two-fold: to provide people in Pea Ridge, Arkansas with healthy, organic free food; and to use it as a pilot project that we can scale up to other communities. As a result of the creation of the Pea Ridge, Arkansas food forest, we expect the following to occur within the first five years of the project: 

 

Within one year…

●      We will survey possible land tracts to use for the food forest;

●      We will purchase 10 acres of land or more;

●      We will communicate with the community concerning their wants and needs for the forest;

●      We will hire all necessary staff and contractors, as well as recruit volunteers;

●      We will begin the process of building the necessary irrigation systems; 

●      We will begin the process of planting and growing the food forest. 

 

Within two years…

●      We will see at least 50 percent of the plants develop to yield produce; 

●      We will install three bee keeping stations and three butterfly gardens in targeted areas around the food forest;

●      We will bring 100 chickens and build a chicken coop for their housing;

●      We will open the food forest to the public as crops become available.

 

Within five years…

●      We will have established partners within the community to identify a plan to maintain the garden once we have exited to another region;

●      We will have produced 600,000 pounds of food per year by this time; 

●      We will have supplied up to 2,000 people per year with free food from the forest. 

●      We will have helped decrease the amount of carbon emissions and increased the quality in the soil

 

Once fully operational, we will track food forest usage by the community. We will monitor the amount of people who are served through our food forest, and track their demographic information where possible. We will survey participants to understand their race/ethnicity, age, income, and family makeup, as well as how many times they visit the food forest every week. We expect to serve a majority of low-income, underserved populations, families with single parents, and senior citizens. 

 

 

Project Offset has established a three-year budget forecast that puts its total cost for its first year of operation at $1,423,650. In this first year, we expect to build the majority of the food forest, including its irrigation systems and planting. These one-time costs include the purchase of land ($600,000), materials and construction labor ($200,000), the purchase of a farm vehicle ($50,000), office equipment and supplies ($7,500), and solar energy implementation ($40,000). Further costs include payroll, benefits, training and travel for field assignments ($455,800) for staff members. They will be responsible for overseeing the project, raising funds for the project, and establishing further partnerships within the community to ensure the project is completed successfully.

 

We are currently in the process of identifying potential funders and community partners. Arkansas Naturals is a baseball team that has agreed to sponsor our program at their baseball stadium by promoting us and giving us a portion of their ticket sales. We also plan to reach out to the following funders in the coming weeks and months: Clif Family Foundation, Bank of America Charitable Foundation, Cornell Douglas Foundation, and First Horizon Foundation,. We also are in the process of selecting and applying for grants from the USDA, including the Regional Food System Partnerships Program. 

 

Additionally, we expect to garner great support from our local and regional communities who want to see advancement in food security and environment initiatives like ours. We plan to host fundraisers both online and in-person to spark excitement and increase funding for our projects. In-kind labor, as well as, materials will greatly benefit the project, as well. Once initial capital improvements are made, we expect program costs to significantly decrease for the Pea Ridge project, allowing us to expand to another community opening up more forests. 

 

 

Our strategy on growth is through the expansion model and being a public charity with an opportunistic mission relatable throughout the world, we confidently expect the donations and fundraisers to increase drastically. Because this is such a different idea that America is in great need of. Once we gain excellent traction through the United States, we plan to go global. Each year, our goal is to grow by at least 20-30% which will allow for us to invest into low-risk money market accounts, and high-yield savings accounts. This will allow for us to scale in the fashion we are needing.