BOSTON - August 24 - One year after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated the Gulf region, Farm Aid reports that area farmers are not giving up. Family farmers are finding new ways to get their products to market and to rebuild their generations-old farms.

Farm Aid has been working with family farmers since August 2005 to help rebuild homes, barns, and pastures, and to provide hay to starving livestock. In the past year, the organization has witnessed incredible determination and resilience as farm families have developed new connections in the Delta and across the country to rebuild their markets. Two of these extraordinary family farmers are available to talk about their lives and livelihoods since the hurricanes and their efforts to rebuild their homes, farms and communities.

-- Ben Burkett is an African American farmer in southern Mississippi whose property was damaged by the hurricanes. The Burkett farm suffered major crop losses and the markets where he sold the farm's crops - the New Orleans Farmers Market and the Casino Market in Biloxi - were destroyed. In the year since Katrina, Ben has bounced back, helping to develop new markets in Biloxi and New Orleans with the support of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives and Farm Aid. He is participating in those markets and working with other farmers in the region to develop cooperatives to improve their economic situation. While Ben has struggled to rebuild his farm, he's not stopped helping his neighbors and colleagues to rebuild theirs.

-- Jim Core is an organic vegetable producer out of Louisiana who suffered property damage and crop loss during Katrina. He was selling produce into the New Orleans market which was destroyed. After being unable to access federal assistance, Jim called the Farm Aid emergency hotline for support and Farm Aid responded by providing Jim with direct emergency assistance and by connecting him to other farmers in and farm support groups in the area. Jim is recovering and has identified new markets in the region to sell his produce as well as working to set up new markets in Jefferson Parish. He is also reaching out to restaurants in New Orleans and has created a strong market there.

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