BFRDP Projects

During Farm School NYC’s three-year USDA BFRDP grant from 2016-2019, we achieved the following objectives:

• 257 students gained knowledge and skills through courses to produce food sustainably and develop and manage innovative marketing activities. We organized over 55 Citywide Certificate courses—1,197 hours of instruction—at more than 20 farms in New York City and the Hudson Valley that improved participants’ knowledge and skills to produce food sustainably and manage marketing activities. We also conducted 24 workshops and immersive trips.
  
  
• 29 students gained more intensive on-farm training through our Farm Intensive Certificate Program.
  
  
• 41 students gained in-depth, hands-on experience through 140+ -hour apprenticeships to produce food sustainably and develop and manage marketing activities at 17 different farms in urban and rural settings.
  
  
• 45 alumni gained additional information, skills, and networking opportunities to support their entry into farming. We developed a variety of networking and continuing education events for alumni, including two new advanced skills courses – Soilless Production and Mushroom Production, two sponsored conferences, Farm School NYC’s CRAFT programming, two Summer Solstice Food Justice gathering, and end-of-season gatherings and student graduations. Moreover, we engaged alumni as teachers for courses – more than 25% of our teachers by the last year of this grant.
  
  
• 99 Regional farm apprentices and junior farm staff participated in our urban-based Collaborative Regional Alliance for Farmer Training (CRAFT) program. We launched the first urban CRAFT program in the Northeast, with 99 participants at 22 events.
  
  
• 21 low-resource students eligible for our two most subsidized tuition levels completed Farm School NYC’s certificate program. This low resource group is 76% female, 5% gender nonconforming, 43% African American, 24% Latinx, and 14% Asian. This comprises 75% of those graduating, reflecting Farm School NYC’s demonstrated commitment to serving limited resource and socially disadvantaged New York City communities, and our outreach, selection and tuition strategies.