It can be difficult for low-income citizens to have access to high-quality, fresh, organic produce. Many grocery stores don't sell it, and for those that do, the produce may have traveled a long distance and be anything but fresh. In many inner-city or remote rural communities, grocery stores can be far away, often replaced by convenience stores that carry little, if any, produce at all.

To complicate matters, food stamps, which many low-income families rely upon, have been converted from paper currency to a debit card system known as Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT). Now, local enterprises must tie into this electronic system for food-stamp users to get fresh, organic and local produce. One farm in the Northwest corner of Washington state is taking matters into its own hands.

Uprising Organics, located in Acme, Wash., launched a community-supported agriculture (CSA) program in 2007 that only accepts food stamps as payment for its shares. Brian Campbell and Crystine Goldberg own Uprising Organics, and their business philosophy lives up to the farm's name. Besides serving their low-income CSA members, the farm also raises produce to sell at a local farmers market and local restaurants and stores. It also grows and markets seeds suited to the Pacific Northwest. Through their CSA, Campbell and Goldberg are committed to seeing that lower-income people in their community have equal access to fresh, local, organic produce. They see their role as growing community as well as crops.

To learn more about Uprising Organics, buy the January/February edition of Touch the Soil magazine at a retail outlet or subscribe online.