RC Blog and Stories

More about the 16th Annual Winter Forum and Networking Dinner

Stronger Together: Building a Future for Our Communities and Children

January 29-31, 2024 • Washington, DC

The Rural Coalition is an alliance of farmers, farmworkers, and indigenous, migrant and working people from the United States, Mexico, Canada, and beyond working together toward a new society that values unity, hope, people and the earth.
The Rural Coalition’s Annual Winter Forum is one of the few places nationwide where our diverse grassroots members – organizations, farmers and ranchers, farmworkers and youth delegates engaged in agriculture – can convene to share knowledge. The goal of this “Knowledge Sharing Institute” is to share, connect and develop innovative grassroots solutions to secure food sovereignty and build a more just and sustainable food system that fosters diversity, equity and community-based inclusiveness. The event will include dialogue with our federal partners on our progress and solutions to the challenges we face. Our communities will share their work, and our partners in academia the research they are doing. Our youth members will share their work on rural and urban agriculture and how the Child Nutrition Reauthorization Act to eradicate childhood hunger and food insecurity can be important to all our communities. Our Farm and Ranch Team will share what they are doing to implement and survive the new Farm Bill. We come together to share our short-term work on making sure the voices of our members are reflected in federal regulatory processes, as well as our longer-term work of protecting land, water, energy, air and a future for our communities and children.
The support received this year will assure that the diverse producers, farmworkers and rural communities we serve are able to represent their unique communities to share ideas and their experiences with agricultural leadership and each other. Your support will be used to help the Rural Coalition expand participation in this event and bring diverse leaders together to confer on how current policies are working on concrete changes to improve equity and inclusion.

Please Join Us!

Our challenges remain as great as ever, but as we come together for our annual gathering, we will celebrate what we together have accomplished and what else we need to do to move forward together to grow equity and food sovereignty and to care for our communities and planet. On behalf of our Rural Coalition Board of Directors, we look forward to your presence. We are stronger together, and we hope you will join us and support and participate in this important event.