BFRDP Projects

“Growing Our Own: A New Sonoran Desert Farmers Incubator Program” is piloting a community-based multi-tiered collaborative approach to increasing the number and capacity of market growers, farmers and ranchers in a remote tri-national community of Ajo, Arizona and the surrounding region. The program will 1. Expand the capacity and skills of the existing beginning farmers through providing education, mentoring and technical support; 2. Incubate a minimum of 15 new growers through providing paid apprenticeships, and/or access to land, knowledge, materials and markets; 3. Raise a new generation of Sonoran Desert farmers and ranchers through a school campus-based “education intervention” (“Ag Club”) for high school students at the Ajo Unified School District.

After Year 1, the outputs include 90 hours (out of projected total 150 hours) of classroom style instructions for adults; 275 hours of individual mentoring and technical assistance (projected total hours for three years were 210); 13 field trips (projected total: 9); 5,440 hours of paid apprenticeship (projected total: 6,750); and 57 hours of high school level agricultural education (projected total: 60).

In Year 1, the project served unduplicated 35 local beginning farmers and ranchers (projected total: 30) and additional 85 regional beginning farmers (projected total: 70); or a total of 120 in Year 1 alone (projected total 100), out of which 95% improved their production practices and decision-making abilities, based on their surveys and reports. 15 local growers and ranchers completed a business plan in Year 1 (total projection: 15), and 30 (total project projection was 24) designed a farm (garden) operating procedures including a food safety handling plan. 20 local growers entered new markets (projected total: 10). In Year 1, no new / beginning farmers have used the services of NRCS or Farm Service Agency yet (projected total is 3), however, introductions were made and several farmers are looking into the programs, grants and loans offered. 20 new beginning farmers (projected total: 15) transitioned backyard growing into market growing or started a market growing or a farming operation over the first year, which represents a 66% increase in local number of growers (projected total number: 50%).

In Year 1, the project also installed an urban 1-acre Incubator Farm, added additional youth activities (agricultural club at the Tohono O'odham High School on the Tohono O'odham Reservation and summer ag internship), and started offering mini grants, matched savings accounts and loans to beginning farmers as a part of a community-based partnership program called Kickstart Ajo (funded by the Freeport McMoran Foundation).

As the numbers of beginning farm and ranch women has increased there has been a corresponding increase in programs providing education and technical assistance to them. While these programs have developed tools and curricula for addressing the learning needs of beginning farmers there remain many areas of the country where women farmers are still chronically underserved. In addition, while many tools, assessments and curricula are available there is no central repository for these materials. Nor is there a typology, or catalog, that can be used to determine which materials would be most useful given the needs of a specific target audience. 

The goal of this project is to assemble a national learning network to evaluate existing curricula and materials targeting beginning farm and ranch women of all ages, ethnicity, and agricultural production interests. Content teams will identify information gaps; develop corresponding learning modules, and train peers and colleagues in their delivery and evaluation. Our project focuses on subjects of special importance to beginning farm and ranch women: legal issues; business scale and profitability; farm safety, mechanization and ergonomics; land access, transfer and stewardship; and management. A virtual learning network will provide educators and agricultural technical assistance providers with evidence-based information regarding women’s learning preferences, peer-reviewed training materials, evaluation tools, and mentoring from colleagues experienced in working with women farmers and ranchers. 

We work closely with the BFRDP Clearinghouse and the eXtension Women in Ag Learning Network to determine the most effective way to house available materials and create functional search strategies to help users find support.  

The project develops opportunities to start farming on rented land with financial coaching and guidance from experienced farmer-mentors. Mentors in the program could be paid hourly for time spent mentoring or in a lump sum upon accomplishing the program goals. Notably, the mentors who pursued the lump payments helped two mentees to learn how to fence and seed cropland, based on the experience that the mentors gained as mentees in the program. Overall through the program we documented 14 successful mentorships between beginning and experienced livestock farmers. According to participants’ exit surveys during the past three years, six people started farming, total herd size increased by 107 cows, farm acreage increased by a total of 222 acres, and gross farm income by $144,300 or ~$5,300 per participant.

SW Badger promoted contract grazing, or grazing livestock for other people to get cash income. The grazingbroker.org website helps livestock producers to connect with landowners to rent land. Fifty-three producers and 66 landowners completed profiles. The Grazing Broker Handbook that describes how to rent land for managed grazing was downloaded 72 times and was used as training curriculum during 13 farm visits and four workshops that reached 185 beginning farmers and landowners.

The Grazing Broker was invited to speak at several conferences in Wisconsin during the final year of the project. We used the information from these speaking tours to develop two tools: the land investment assessment and land rental assessment. These new tools were used during 6 farm visits and 5 workshops that reached 196 beginning farmers and landowners. Participants reported that the tools helped them to better understand their options for raising livestock and renting land. The Mentorship Program for Future Livestock Farmers has helped the Grazing Broker program to better serve the needs of landowners and farmers in Southwest Wisconsin.

Access to land is one of the biggest challenges for beginning farmers (BF) in New England. In this project, Land For Good, its partners and 40 collaborators enabled over 2,800 BFs to access land or improve their tenure situation in six New England states. Our goals were to: improve BFs’ readiness to successfully access land to farm; enable effective farm succession and transfer to BFs; improve how BFs find and evaluate farm properties and connect with landowners; educate professionals and BFs about innovative approaches and methods; and strengthen programs that help BFs access land and improve the conditions for farmland access in New England and nationally.

Through coordinated teams and task forces, we developed a curriculum for our 3-session Succession School conducted in six states for 18 farms. We launched an innovative online Build-a-Lease tool and updated our 8-module online Acquiring Your Farm course. We produced a comprehensive Farm Access Guide and decision tool explaining and comparing land tenure methods. We produced a land access guide for commercial urban farming, a farm property posting guide, a Farm Succession School instructors’ manual, 11 fact sheets, and a blog report on affordable farmer housing.

We conducted 46 land access and transfer workshops for 2,536 trainees, and a 2-day cross-discipline succession professional training for attorneys and other advisers. LFG provided direct “coaching” to 887 farm seekers, landowners and transitioning farmers.

We improved the region's farm link programs, revamped our regional online New England Farmland Finder Farm Transfer Network of New England websites. We held three project convenings for over 40 collaborators. In cooperation with USDA, we held a national conference in June 2017 for 220 service providers, agency personnel and advocates from 40 states. A conference report summarizes collected policy and program suggestions for all regions. 

Our project was developed by and for small scale beginning farmers across Connecticut. Instead of duplicating the efforts of great organizations that are already offering beginner farmer training programs, this project enriched these programs by delivering core trainings, providing one-on-one technical assistance to participants, and implementing unique statewide events to foster networking and learning across the beginner farmer community. The core trainings offered were designed primarily for existing and aspiring sustainable vegetable producers.  All of trainings and resources have been branded as UConn Extension's 'Solid Ground Farmer Trainings'.

Core trainings included the following topics: business planning, soil health, farmland access, small scale production of vegetables and fruit, irrigation, post-harvest handling, tunnel production systems, cover crop systems, profitable meat enterprises, managing invasive species, pesticide safety, welding, business planning, eco-focused farming techniques, tractor and small engine safety & maintenance. Trainings were delivered in person in small group settings of 5 to 30 attendees. Training locations were in Bridgeport, Hartford, Killingly, New Haven, Simsbury, Stamford, and Windham. One-on-one technical assistance was available to producers who requested assistance in: 1) vegetable disease and pest management, 2) farmland evaluation and soil health, 3) farm financial record-keeping. and 4) engineering for post-harvest handling.  In year 1 there were 26 core trainings. In year 2 there were 34 core trainings. In year 3 there were 31 trainings. By the third year our project reached at least 275 unique attendees and drew a combined attendance of 800+ new and beginning farmers. 

Our project also used grant funds and leveraged key partnership to implement 3 statewide events: 1) The Build Your Network, Grow Our Future - brought together new farmers and service providers for a day of networking and training; 2) The Agriculture Re$ource Fair featured grant opportunities that are available to new farmers, co-presented by a producer that had received the grant and a grants program representative; 3) Farm Equipment Day was an opportunity to see vegetable equipment demonstrations.

Solid Ground Core Trainings were delivered at: Common Ground High School in New Haven, the Community Farm of Simsbury, the Green Village Initiative in Bridgeport, Killingly Agriculture Education Program, KNOX in Hartford, WRCC-GROW Windham, and UConn's Ready-to-Start urban agriculture program.  Other critical partners in the project are the New CT Farmer Alliance and the Northeast Organic Farming Association of CT.

Aquaculture Boot Camp (ABC) is an extremely successful program. The long-term goal of the program is to utilize “3-I” levels (Intensive, Intermediate, Introductory), 3 areas (aquaponics, aquaculture, and related business and marketing) and 3 types (hands-on, classroom/mentoring, and internet/webinar) of integrated training and multi-faceted approach, paired with mentoring of industry professionals and previous ABC graduates, to enhance the sustainability of limited-resource new and beginning aqua-farmers in the Midwest and Appalachian region. This has been accomplished through the development and delivery of a multi-phase ABC program in which new and limited-resource aquaculture/aquaponic farmers with different knowledge levels. The specific goals of the ABC program have been achieved through partnerships and collaborations of multiple nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), community-based organizations (CBOs), and school-based agricultural educational organizations (SAEOs), as well as many aquaponics/aquaculture farms and several universities, led by The Ohio State University (OSU) and NGOs/CBOs/NGOs with expertise in new and beginning farmer training and outreach.  

For the ABC-1 project, forty-four new aqua-farms were created by the 2013 and 2014 ABC participates. For the ABC-2 project, forty-two new businesses/farms have been created by the 2017 - 2019 ABC-2 participates. For example, one of the ABC-1 Intensive graduates are now in his seventh year producing over 35,000 lbs fish/year with revenues of more than $125,000; a ABC-2 graduate has built an aquaculture facility that is able to produce 80,000 lbs of tilapia; another ABC-2 graduate is launching a commercial version of indoor shrimp farm in 2019 with a side of aquaponics; one of our ABC students has played important rales in developing Superior Fresh, a multimillion dollar fish farm and aquaponic greenhouse capable of producing 160,000 pounds of Atlantic salmon and rainbow trout and up to 2 million pounds of varietal and leaf lettuce per year in Wisconsin.

The success of ABC can be attributed to the “3-I” levels, 3 areas and 3 types of integrated training and multi-faceted approach. The unique Internship program that provides apprentice-type training opportunities for next generation aquaculture/aquaponic farmers also contributed the success. Because of the success of this arrangement, the ABC-3 model can be adapted to other regions and communities in the United States. This model could easily apply to other industries, for example, a Horticulture Boot Camp, where participants would choose a horticulture crop to learn about and conduct a pilot scale project in the future. 

We addressed the primary goal of BFRDP “enhance food security, community development and sustainability by providing beginning farmers and ranchers … with knowledge, skills and tools needed to make informed decisions for their operations, and enhance their sustainability”. This project provided training and mentoring that assisted 48 beginning beef cattle producers from 28 different operations in South Dakota to become economically, ecologically, and socially sustainable. It was a collaborative partnership of SDSU Extension, 4 South Dakota producer organizations, 3 rural banks, and 19 beefSD alumni that served as peer mentors. 
It was comprised of:

• Instructional workshops (topics included livestock production, natural resource stewardship, marketing, finance, legal, and leadership)
  
• Case studies of four alternative beef production systems and management practices
  
• Evaluation of post-weaning performance of participants’ calves 
  
• Mentoring from peers, established beef cattle producers and agriculture professionals 
  
• Web-based interaction using social networking and webinars
• Travel-study trips to study other segments of the beef cattle industry

The intensive 24 month program was highly successful.  It presented producers tools to make wise management decisions that contribute to ongoing agricultural production, land stewardship, and rural community viability. Impacts to the producers are numerous and will have long term implementations and outcomes to the beef industry in South Dakota. Satisfaction with the program was 4.68 out of 5. 

Quotes on the overall impact: 
“Absolutely loved this program and we are so honored that we were chosen to be apart of this program and we can't wait to be able to implement everything we have learned and strive to continue networking, advocating, and improving our operation daily.”

“… I never would have even thought about 75% of the things we've done from going through a packing plant, feedlots, legislative sessions, white table cloth suppers, and the networking aspect....Its broadened my horizons so much” 

This simplified standard grant was used to enhance the activities of the Nebraska Women in Agriculture Program to provide innovative farm business management education for beginning female farmers and ranchers (BFFR), and develop a Land Link service for Nebraska.

This project funded eight Annie’s Project courses and a two-day Women in Agriculture conference to for 289 participants, 21% of which were estimated to be BFFR. These activities will catered to women by encouraging them to ask questions, connect with participants and speakers, and share their experiences. These hands-on programs increased the knowledge and skills of attendees, ultimately leading to greater success of BFFR.

The project supported Nebraska’s Land Link program, which launched Feb. 1, 2021. At the end of the grant funding, the Land Link program had 173 participants, 167 Land Seekers (10 Female)  and 6 Landowners (1 Female).

The purpose of this Educational Enhancement Team project is to develop new resources to help beginning farmers and ranchers improve the financial and business management aspects of their operations, as well as better-equip educators to guide them through this process. This project will:

• Develop and improve delivery of farm financial and business management tools and programs to help beginning farmers and ranchers better understand and manage the financial aspects of their businesses
• Improve the ability of organizations to deliver farm financial and business management training to beginning farmers and ranchers
• Evaluate ways to improve the Farm Answers clearinghouse to make it even more valuable to beginning farmers and ranchers
  

This project will fulfill the two goals of EET projects. It will identify gaps in farm financial and business management tools and programs and address ways to make Farm Answers more valuable to beginning farmers. It will also develop curriculum and deliver train-the-trainer workshops to better equip BFRDP projects to help beginning farmers in farm financial and business management.

Our program creates a positive ecosystem promoting professional and financial growth for beginning farmers in the Atlanta
region through an agricultural incubator immersion program. The 20 beginner farmers per year includes veterans, socially
disadvantaged, limited resource, or farmworkers, including women, African-Americans, Latinx, Asian, and LGBTQ farmers, with
at least 60% of the budget going to serve these groups. Training includes the hands-on application of knowledge as they learn
and work on the farm weekly and all participants will receive training through the University of Georgia. The objectives of the project are to continue training of graduate students, complete the repairs of the training site 100%, and continue to
work toward agricultural sustainability. GIF has submitted request for no-cost extension from March 2022 to May 2023. During the extension period, GIF will continue classes through May 2023. For this, we will continue our advertisement, marketing, and community outreach efforts.

The project milestones are slightly revised based on the following learnings from the first year of implementation: the lesson learned from growing lavender is that it takes about three years to generate income and turn it into a profitable venture. Since three (3) years is a substantial period for the farmer to acquire the desired profitability, the cultivation of this crop cannot be considered sustainable for beginner farmers. In light of this, we adapted the project by designing a specialized program to train beginner farmers in handling, cultivating, and processing hemp. We are rationalizing this based on the development in the state regulation and market. As hemp farming is now legal and profitable, cultivating this crop usually takes farmers 3-6 months to realize. Thus, our activities are designed to expedite the revenue generation and profit-making process through hemp production to sustain farms and livelihoods for beginner farmers.

As a collaboration of organizations, coordinated and led by Clemson Extension, we are working toward the continuation and further development of the South Carolina New and Beginning Farmer Program (SCNBFP). Clemson Extension launched the SCNBFP in 2011-2013 with the assistance of BFRD funding; an abbreviated program was reintroduced in 2015 without federal assistance.

The long-term goals of the SCNBFP are to increase the initial success and long-term viability of new and beginning farm businesses --- and to build long-term statewide and sub-state regional program delivery capacity --- in order to help create and support the cadre of next generation farm operators in South Carolina. The target audience for our proposal is new and beginning farmers in South Carolina (27 of 46 counties are Strike Force communities), including those considered socially disadvantaged and veteran farmers, with a particular focus on non-conventional, specialty crop, and value-added operations at both the novice and intermediate levels.

We recently completed the first two years of our three year grant-funded program serving 92 program graduates and 1,163 others through our regional network of workshops across the state.  The program continues to attract a diverse array of entrepreneurial beginning farmers interested in learning how to create successful farm businesses and we continue to provide the service or providing the resources they require to the best of our abilities.