SRAP Strategic Plan for 2022-2025

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SRAP is pleased to present our Strategic Plan, covering the three-year period of 2022–2025.

Overview

For more than 20 years, SRAP has served as a mobilizing force to assist communities in protecting themselves from the damages caused by industrial livestock operations and to advocate for a food system built on regenerative practices, justice, democracy, and resilience. Our team includes leading technical experts, independent family farmers, and rural residents who have faced the direct threats of factory farms in their communities.

Some of our successes have included stopping new facilities from being built and fending off future factory farm development; working with communities to ensure more effective enforcement of environmental laws by state and federal regulators; and helping local governments craft and enact ordinances to protect the environment and public health. While our victories vary in scope and degree, a critical element of SRAP’s success lies in our capacity to show rural residents their collective power to effect change, and in doing so, fostering ongoing engagement in shaping the future of their communities.

By collaborating with a diverse array of partners, including nonprofit organizations, grassroots groups, coalitions, farmers and land stewards, foundations, and government agencies, we have established relationships and trust with our partners and the communities we serve and expanded the footprint and impact of our work.

In 2020, the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic magnified the systemic social and environmental problems our team has tackled since SRAP’s inception, and we found ourselves at a turning point in our own organizational development. Because convening and supporting a variety of communities and stakeholders is such an integral part of how we work, the pandemic forced us to reconsider how we organize ourselves internally and execute our work externally. Taking the time and space for strategic planning and organizational development over the last year has given us valuable space for exploring our priorities amid a need to expand our current programs and a growing array of pilot programs and new
partnerships.

Our 2022–2025 Strategic Plan includes five strategic priorities that will guide our overall work moving forward:

1. COMMUNITY SUPPORT

Provide More Effective, Efficient Support to More Impacted Communities
Through Our Community Support Program

2. WATER RANGERS 

Expand the Water Rangers Program to Increase the Number of Communities

3. FOOD & FARM NETWORK

Build and Scale the Food & Farm Network (FFN) Program to Bolster SRAP’s Policy and Advocacy Work

4. CONTRACT GROWER TRANSITION PROGRAM

Develop the Contract Grower Transition Program to Further Transform Rural Communities

5. FUNDING

Diversify SRAP’s Funding Sources and Development Capacity

Focusing on Industrial Livestock Operations: How We Define This Work

In the U.S., most meat, dairy, poultry, and eggs are no longer produced on idyllic pasture-based farms. Instead, the vast majority of food animals are raised in industrial livestock operations, which are controlled by a handful of powerful multinational agribusiness corporations. These facilities confine thousands—and sometimes millions—of animals without adequate space or access to open air or pasture.

As a result of this extreme concentration of animals, industrial livestock operations pollute the environment, threaten public health, compromise animal welfare, damage local economies, and decrease the quality of life in surrounding communities.

These facilities are intentionally sited in rural areas, also referred to as fenceline communities, where residents lack the political and economic resources to effectively protect themselves. The operations are also disproportionately constructed near low-income and Black, Indigenous, and Latinx communities, constituting an egregious environmental injustice that has persisted for decades.

Most of our work involves communities facing new or existing production facilities, which are known as factory farms or concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), a term defined by the U.S. EPA. SRAP also helps communities facing other types of operations, which can include processing plants and factory farm gas (aka biogas) facilities, among others. These facilities cause many of the same damages as CAFOs and incentivize the proliferation of CAFOs in fenceline communities.

Mission, Vision, Values, Outcomes

Mission

Through education, advocacy, and organizing, SRAP collaborates with communities to protect public health, environmental quality, and local economies from the damaging impacts of industrial livestock production and to advocate for a socially responsible food future.

Vision

Supported by SRAP, communities across the U.S. are able to replace industrial livestock production with ecologically sound, socially equitable, and economically viable animal agriculture.

Values

Socially responsible agriculture can rebuild critically needed topsoil, reduce water and air pollution, strengthen rural economies, and support human health and food security, all while providing climate resiliency. With socially responsible agriculture, we all thrive.

On the other hand, with industrial livestock production comes injustice … to the environment, to people, to animals, and to the planet. Today’s consolidated food and agriculture system drives independent family farmers off the land, abuses food system workers, perpetuates social and racial injustices, pollutes our air and water, exacerbates climate change, compromises animal welfare, extracts wealth from rural communities, and damages public health. In short, it harms every aspect of life.

SRAP provides free assistance to communities threatened by industrial livestock production facilities. Our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion is reflected in the communities we serve, many of which face social, economic, and racial injustices. We value individuality and lean on unique and varied perspectives to collaborate with communities to stand up to the abuses of factory farms while advocating for a socially responsible food future.

Outcomes

The outcomes by which we measure the success of all our programs are threefold:
1. Fenceline communities are successful in preventing industrial livestock production from expanding, while holding existing facilities accountable;

2. Communities, movement leaders, allied organizations, and SRAP have the tools, research, and data necessary to amplify unified campaigns and narratives;

3. Impacted communities are connected with state and national coalitions to collectively advocate for a socially responsible animal agriculture system.

Theory of Change

Through education, advocacy, and organizing, SRAP collaborates with communities to protect public health, environmental quality, and local economies from the damaging impacts of industrial livestock production and to advocate for a socially responsible food future.

Strategic Priorities

Provide More Effective, Efficient Support to More Impacted Communities Through Our Community Support Program

SRAP’s Community Support Program embodies the organization’s commitment to meeting the crisis needs of communities facing threats of incoming or existing industrial livestock production facilities. This response is part of our longer-term effort to build lasting relationships with those communities through engagement with the Food & Farm Network (FFN). We plan to improve our Community Support Program by developing more off-the-shelf tools, increasing access to technical support, and improving management systems to serve more communities, more effectively without overly burdening SRAP’s Field Team.

Goals for 2022–2025

Improve Our Processes:

  • Streamline our intake process;
  • Customize our work with communities to address their unique situations, (e.g., by engagement plans at the start of community cases to set goals and identify resource needs);
  • Start using a case management system to record case information and track progress, and;
  • Conduct after-action reviews when cases end or stabilize to help us learn what worked and what we can improve.

Offer New Tools and Resources:

  • Create new tools and materials to meet community needs, and make them readily available on SRAP’s website, and;
  • Increase community access to existing data and government resources (e.g., via SRAP-produced GIS maps).

Offer Communities Increased Access to Expertise:

  • Grow SRAP staff expertise in specific areas (e.g., water monitoring, policy engagement, etc.), and;
  • Hire additional consultants, as needed, to provide specialized technical support to more communities.

Expand the Number and Demographics of the Communities We Support.

  • Work to more clearly understand the communities that SRAP could better serve and their specific needs, such as the materials that serve a diverse population;
  • Develop new communications and outreach approaches to increase our visibility, and;
  • Engage in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) training to strengthen internal capacities, diversify staff where possible, and improve our ability to serve all impacted communities.

Expand the Water Rangers Program to Increase the Number of Communities Served

SRAP is expanding its Water Rangers programming, the only CAFO-focused water quality monitoring training program offered free of charge to any interested community throughout the U.S. This program assists rural residents in holding industrial livestock production facilities accountable for water pollution by training them in EPA-approved water testing techniques, providing tools to collect and analyze water samples, and offering instruction on documenting and reporting pollution violations to U.S. EPA, local, and state regulators. By providing these agencies with high-quality documentation and evidence, program participants can compel regulators in every state to take action against polluting operations. Since its inception, SRAP’s Water Rangers program has trained 413 resident scientists in 12 states. This program expansion will ultimately allow SRAP to offer our water monitoring training as a tool for every community help request SRAP receives within the Midwest region.

Goals for 2022-2025

Build a robust and ever-expanding network of well-trained community scientists in rural areas across the country who are prepared to monitor pollution from industrial livestock production facilities.

  • Train volunteers, including CAFO neighbors, to identify monitoring locations, create water sampling plans, conduct EPA-approved water quality monitoring, interpret sampling results, and effectively document and submit data to enforcement agencies;
  • Offer training, assistance, and guidance on how to meaningfully participate in the public input process before the state’s issuance of CAFO permits, and;
  • Working with the FFN, actively participate in and facilitate, where necessary, coalitions that conduct state-based advocacy campaigns to reform the industrial livestock industry using unified narratives about water quality and natural resource protection.

Compel regulators to take action against polluting industrial livestock production facilities by providing agencies with high-quality documentation and evidence.

  • Work closely with U.S. EPA, local, and state regulators by providing data on polluting actors, including water and DNA sample data, site analyses, and mapping and aerial photos of CAFOs to document known pollution, and;
  • Educate decision-makers and regulatory bodies, including environmental agency and local public health department staff, about the effects of industrial livestock operations on human health and the environment.

Build and Scale the Food & Farm Network (FFN) Program to Bolster SRAP’s Policy and Advocacy Work

FFN was created to mobilize advocates beyond the immediate CAFO threats addressed by SRAP’s Community Support program. Our goal is to engage rural communities to advocate for their health, environment, and quality of life, collaborating with them to prevent future CAFO encroachment while promoting socially responsible agriculture. While SRAP has conducted similar efforts on an ad hoc basis in the past, through FFN, we are devoting more resources to this work and taking a more consistent, strategic approach to improve our effectiveness.

While SRAP has conducted similar efforts on an ad hoc basis in the past, through FFN, we are devoting more resources to this work and taking a more consistent, strategic approach to improve our effectiveness.

Goals for 2022–2025

Leadership Development: SRAP will identify emerging leaders in impacted communities and help them become more effective long-term advocates and ambassadors for our work. FFN offerings will include:

  • Advocacy training (e.g., campaign design, media engagement, narrative building, etc.), including developing and deploying a policy toolkit and training module;
  • One-on-one mentorship opportunities with SRAP staff;
  • Networking events to connect new leaders with other advocates, and;
  • Collaboration with SRAP’s core programs (Water Rangers, Community Support program, and Contract Grower Transition program) to identify community leaders to participate in FFN program and leadership cohorts.

Coalition Building: SRAP will support broader advocacy efforts by continuing to engage impacted communities in state and regional coalitions. We plan to:

  • Connect communities with existing coalitions;
  • Build and grow new coalitions where needed;
  • Provide coalitions with communications support, issue and policy updates, and networking opportunities, and;
  • Eventually offer stipends to community members who manage regional coalitions.

Policy Advocacy: While policy efforts are included in the leadership and coalition efforts above, we hope to offer additional opportunities for community advocates. We plan to:

  • Engage community members in state and national policy initiatives;
  • Train participants to effectively engage policymakers;
  • Produce policy resources and action alerts to foster ongoing national advocacy work and campaigns, including, for example, working with the Water Rangers Program to compile data collected from community water monitoring in a map to demonstrate the national impacts of industrial livestock production facilities;
  • Develop evergreen communications content and a communications strategy for influencing local and/or state political figures as a part of SRAP’s strategy when responding to new help requests in our Community Support Program, and;
  • Explore options for hiring policy consultants and or staffing as the program expands and grows.

Develop the Contract Grower Transition Program

SRAP identified the need for a contract grower/producer transition program, which we launched in 2021. The goal of the program is to reduce the number of growers indentured by the corporate agriculture system, while collaborating with them to advocate for socially responsible agriculture. We hired two former contract growers to become community organizers and advocacy leaders on SRAP’s field team. After the initial program rollout, we invited one of these newly trained team members to assume a full-time position to provide increased outreach to more contract growers and producers who have interest in transitioning out of contract production. Through this program, we plan to continue to facilitate advocacy and organizing training for additional growers and will invite them to join the expanding SRAP team, as capacity allows. When possible, we will also connect them to ally organizations advocating on behalf of socially responsible agriculture systems who wish to hire former contract growers.

Goals for 2022–2025

Conduct a landscape analysis that will guide the program moving forward, with the goal of identifying and researching the organizations, resources, assistance, opportunities, and tools available to growers in various phases and stages of operation;

Establish a Contract Grower Advisory Group to inform the initial analysis and program design, conducting one-on-one interviews and ongoing meetings with these growers;

Based on the initial needs assessment, develop a toolkit for the program that will include:

  • Opportunities and ideas for growers either already out of the contract system or hoping to exit the system that they may consider to continue to generate income. This can include opportunities like working for NGOs, entering into fellowship programs, transitioning their farms to sustainable operations, etc.;
  • Organizations interested in hiring former contract growers, as well as information on their missions, visions, and contact information;
  • Financial institutions, foundations, and grant and loan opportunities to help growers transition out of contract production and into new operations;
  • Organizations providing other types of support to growers hoping to transition out of contract production (Mercy For Animals, etc.);
  • Technical resources available to growers to help them learn and build alternative growing methods and operations;
  • Companies interested in contracting with sustainable growers;
  • Educational and training opportunities available to growers interested in learning about and entering into new positions that involve advocacy, movement building, and community-based organizing, etc., and;
  • Paid fellowship and internship opportunities.

Develop a robust intake process to engage new contract growers and identify the best placements and path forward for various contract growers as they enter the program;

Find, hire, and enable at least two current contract growers or conventional livestock and dairy producers to leave the industrial food production business to become part-time or full-time SRAP regional representatives, and;

Provide outreach to grower groups and organizations in order to continue to identify the growers who show interest and ability to transition out of the industrial food animal system and to also educate and inform growers of their rights and opportunities.

Diversify SRAP’s Funding Sources and Continue to Strengthen Organizational Capacity

Develop a more diversified revenue stream that will provide SRAP with the resources to support this Strategic Plan, particularly by increasing our collaboration with a growing array of partners and funders;

Onboard our new Development Manager and continue seeking support for key development and change management consultants, including Gary Gold-Moritz, Joan Wood, and Guidelight Strategies;

Create and fund specific internal positions or outsourced support, as needed, based on our identification of staffing gaps as we execute this Strategic Plan, particularly in the areas of operations, programs, fundraising, and communications. These roles could eventually include:

  • Increased field team and Water Rangers capacity, including regional representatives;
  • Technical support for the field team, engineers, legal, etc.;
  • Policy and advocacy consulting roles;
  • Staying nimble and responsive to the human resources needed to support the FFN and Contract Grower Transition Program, as those programs launch and scale, and;
  • Information Technology and operations support, as needed. And;

Examine existing technology and tools used for operations, communications, and program management to identify those that improve organizational effectiveness and efficiency.

About SRAP

SRAP provides free assistance to communities threatened by industrial livestock production facilities. Our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion is reflected in the communities we serve, many of which face social, economic, and racial injustices. We value individuality and lean on unique and varied perspectives to collaborate with communities to stand up to the abuses of factory farms while advocating for a socially responsible food future. Learn more at sraproject.org