Project Overview
The long-term goal of PFC’s BFRDP project is to empower refugee, immigrant, and Black beginning farmers with needed resources, knowledge, skills, and opportunities to enter and continuously improve their successes in farming by refining PFC’s beginning farmer training initiatives in collaboration with Cornell partners. According to feedback from PFC's farmers, the best methods for effective learning are personalized, hands-on, and language-adaptive demonstration in the field and teaching in the classroom, plus the use of visual resources. Farmers expressed needing to learn about livestock and crop farming plus farm business and financial management. These farmers prioritize building inter- and intra-community relationships plus earning income through farming. Included in their definitions of success for their farms are being able to feed their communities and connect with their culture. Thus, our primary objectives are to a) increase PFC staff knowledge and capacity so staff can better meet the expressed learning needs of refugee, immigrant, and Black farmers and b) empower such farmers to enter or improve their successes in farming through access to land, personalized education, and market opportunities while building community, nourishing their communities, and connecting with their culture.
To accomplish its long-term goal, the project supports farmers in creating annual individualized education plans and partners at Cornell train PFC staff on topic basics. Through farmers’ education plans and increased staff knowledge and capacity, PFC staff will better provide basic personalized education and mentorship to farmers that is hands-on, language-adapted, and one-on-one or small-group. Partners will likewise reference farmers’ education plans to deliver advanced instruction and technical assistance, as well as support curricula refinement and production of visual learning materials. PFC farmland and relationships with markets serving low-income, low-access communities will be leveraged throughout the program. In total, 200 under-resourced farmers will be served and four staff members will be trained.
Number of Participants: 204
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