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The
Illinois Stewardship Alliance (ISA) is a 34-year-old statewide membership
organization working to promote environmental stewardship in the state.
Founded in 1974 as the Illinois South Project, the organization was
created to oppose the unfettered strip mining that was occurring in
much of the state. With the success of passing the U.S. Surface Mining
Control and Reclamation Act and cognate laws on the state level, the
organization changed its name and focus to promote family farmers and
healthy food systems in Illinois.
Since that time, some of our successes include:
- Establishing Food Policy Councils,
which provide communities opportunities to discuss food system issues
that are important to them such as marketing, alternative production,
and funding
- Participating in C-FAR, the
Illinois Council on Food and Agricultural Research, by helping to
focus research in the state, pushing for adequate funding, and representing
the needs for alternative agriculture and marketing
- Partnering with two other
premier environmental groups in the state, the Illinois Environmental
Council and the Prairie Rivers Network, in the Rolling River Ride,
a bike ride fundraiser for the environment. This event, which promises
to build into the future, was made possible by sponsors including
very generous support from Rush-Copely
- Participating in the first
Chicago Food Summit as sponsors, planners, and participants
- Participating in the Rockford
College Food Security Summit as sponsors
- Participating in the Illinois
Organics Conference as planners and participants
- The Land Grant Accountability
Project, which encouraged the University of Illinois to increase the
amount of research funding for sustainable agriculture
- Establishing organic certification
opportunities for Illinois organic growers
- Organizing Farmers' Market
Nutrition Projects as pilot projects in Champaign-Urbana and East
St. Louis to provide locally-grown foods to low-income persons and
to support direct marketing by farmers
- The Stewardship Farm, a research and education site
- Assisting grassroots groups
in strategy development, organizing responses around key actions,
and working through the bureaucratic process
- Educating county boards about
the deleterious effects of factory livestock farms and their county's
rights under the law
- Organizing local citizens
opposed to the siting, construction, or operation of factory livestock
farms
- Educating and assisting farmers
in developing opportunities for value-added and direct marketing and
encourage activities that promote relational marketing
To find out more about the issues we are currently working on, please go
to our action page.
The strengths of a rural grassroots organization are its members and the
citizens it organizes and works with. ISA is committed to building itself
organizationally, expanding its grassroots base, and strengthening the
ties between independent family farmers, rural communities and consumers
to promote the responsible stewardship of Illinois ' natural resources.
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