Project Overview
Existing apprenticeship and mentoring programs desire shared guidelines and best practices to meet clearly articulated learning goals for producers apprenticing and gaining management skills on commercial farms or ranches. Agricultural career pathways beyond apprenticeship also need development. A national learning network to develop shared curriculum and best practices helped elevate the quality of 50+ apprenticeship programs serving over 1,000 producers. This 3-year project brought together leaders in the field of agricultural apprenticeship facilitation to identify gaps and develop new resources and training materials for nonprofits, CBOs, and commercial farms or ranches looking to improve their management or facilitation of apprenticeship learning programs. The project team of 5 core partners and advisors from 24 organizations researched existing apprenticeship program design, curricula, and operations to understand best practices and successes/challenges, liaison with the Department of Labor to understanding formal Apprenticeship requirements for diverse agricultural sectors, and developed a comprehensive “Designing and Delivering a Quality Legal Apprenticeship Program for Beginning Farmer and Ranchers” Toolkit for national distribution. A national “Apprenticeship” clearinghouse website houses project materials, operates a technical assistance referral service, and hosts farm/ranch mentor training modules. Eight national webinars and conference presentations are posted and describe administering quality apprenticeships, and highlight case studies on successful apprenticeship programs. Five regional training-of-trainer workshops for farm and ranch mentors and three annual national conferences supported Apprenticeship programs to share best practices, receive ongoing professional development, evaluate resource materials, and set agendas for future programming. Producer support services for post-apprenticeship programming were explored.
Number of Participants: 404
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