BFRDP Projects

21st Century Management: Enhancing Educational Programming for Beginning Women Farmers
[Progress Report]

Award Amount: $720,989
Grant Program: 2015 Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program Awards
Project Director: Mary Peabody
Email: mary.peabody@uvm.edu
Organization: UVM Extension

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  • Overview
  • Results
  • Materials
  • Delivery Area
  • Comments

Project Overview

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.  


Number of Participants: 894

Results

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Delivery Area

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