Dougherty County Extension officials are rolling out a new initiative to get healthy farm fresh foods to citizens of Dougherty County.
It’s known as the Communities of Opportunities program.
James Morgan, Dougherty County Extension Agent/Coordinator spoke to the county commission about the initiative during the commission meeting on Monday.
“Basically what the communities of opportunities does is go in and look at the food system and work with your local government to either create policies or change policies so that everybody has an opportunity to healthy, fresh foods,” Morgan said.
Dougherty County was selected as one of eight communities of opportunities from around the country. The initiative is working with a grant from USDA as well as the Growing Foods Connection National Advisory Board according to Morgan.
A steering committee is put together to spearhead the initiative and Morgan said the committee has four goals.
“One, we want to either establish local co-ops for the farmers here or we want to support the local co-ops. We also want to support a food hub that is being sought out there by the southwest Georgia project; that agency,” Morgan said. “We also want to be able to provide farmers an access or a market to sell their commodities and we’re talking about small vegetables and fruits producing farmers and we also want to make sure that everybody in Dougherty County has access to these foods. Whether it be from a convenience store, a super market, a food hub, and the local farmers. But make sure everybody has access to this food,” Morgan added.
They are working on community meetings in the six different wards in the county to make residents aware of what they are trying to do.