Fannie Lou Hamer took out loans to start the Freedom Farm Cooperative (FFC). FFC from the start failed to produce the necessary revenue stream for the cooperative to service its debt. It’s only cash crop cotton prove insufficient to cover its debt. The problem was FFC cotton could not compete with mechanized farm cotton plantations that surrounded it. (260) Larger mechanized cotton farms had the benefit of federal farm subsidies that FFC could not access. Moreover the group the FFC sought to help failed to commit to the collective work of raising a cash crop that could be sold and used to cover the mortgaged property; to add to this problem, Hamer refused to set work requirements for poor families receiving goods and services from FFC. Too many families failed to contribute to different time-consuming work needed for the cooperative to harvest a cash crop. Ultimately, a poor harvest and a lack of regular FFC farm maintenance undeveloped it leading to bank foreclosure.
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