Milk Not Jails, a grass-root organization founded two years ago, is seeking to change the landscape of rural New York by replacing prisons with dairy farms. Before the prison building boom overtook the state, New York’s rustic area was known for its farms. As small farmers found it difficult to compete with huge agri-business conglomerates, thousands of acres of farmland were converted into cement and steel warehouses for human beings. Ninety percent of all prisons in New York State are located in rural areas, although 75 percent of the state’s prisoners come from seven neighborhoods in New York City, according to Milk Not Jails.
The huge influx of prisons surrounding small towns was supposed to provide jobs to area residents, but as the trend to close prisons as an economic necessity continues, jobs are being eliminated. Milk Not Jails has a solution to providing economic stability in rural New York—end the dependency on a prison economy and “revitalize and invest in New York’s agricultural economy as a model alternative to the prison economy.”
Milk Not Jails proposes to do just that by selling milk, yogurt and butter produced in rural New York through Community Supported Agriculture sites. A marketing and distribution strategy that reaches out to supportive housing institutions, substance abuse programs, cafes and restaurants, day care centers and other businesses that provide milk to their customers or clients has been put in place.
Milk Not Jails has created two goals, according to its website:
to end upstate, rural New York’s dependency on the prison economy, which has created a dysfunctional relationship between urban and rural peoples and also has prevented improvements to the State’s criminal justice system from being made.
to revitalize and invest in New York’s agricultural economy as a model alternative to the prison economy.
The goals have an added bonus, connecting urban and rural communities in a viable economic relationship. Supporters of the Milk Not Jails cooperative include small, non-industrialized dairy farmers, residents from urban and rural areas, formerly incarcerated persons and families of prisoners, artists, community activists, and criminal justice reform advocates, all of whom seek to end dairy-industry monopolies, bring about parole reform and end racist criminal justice policies.
To find out more about Milk Not Jails and to learn how to purchase its dairy products click on the link below.
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