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Our long term goal is to assist 25 socially disadvantaged and limited resource farms in the upper Midwest in establishing, growing, and maintaining their specialty crop farm enterprises in the next three years. The focus will be on organic and all-around sustainable methods. Many of these farms are led by women, including Latino, SE Asian, Hmong, East Africa, and Burmese and ethnic Karen. At the end of this project, all farms will complete organic certification, will have their own business plans in place, and will have skills and knowledge towards obtaining their own independent farm enterprises. <P>
2009-2012 Objectives: Provide outreach to socially disadvantaged farms throughout eastern Minnesota and western Wisconsin.<P> Result: Reach over 300 farms during the 3 year grant period and cover 6 counties in Minnesota and 3 counties in Wisconsin. Provide technical assistance to 15 socially disadvantaged farms each year in non-traditional markets for their specialty crops including wholesale and Community Supported Agriculture. <P>Result: Reach 20-25 socially disadvantaged farms over the 3 years, each expected to earn between $4,000 and $30,000 in revenue. Provide training for USDA Organic Certification to 15 socially disadvantaged farms each year; decreasing their reliance on conventional chemicals and increasing their knowledge and skills of crop rotation, soil nutrition and pest management and marketing opportunities. <P>Result: All farms selling through the Big River Farms Marketing program will be officially certified organic and using sustainable growing practices. Provide technical assistance by training in USDA Good Agriculture Practices and Good Handling Practices <P>Result: All farms in the training program understand and use GHP/GAP practices and all farms selling through Big River Farms will pass the GAP/GHP audit. Provide farm business management training to 15 socially disadvantaged farms each year including management of records, risk, marketing and finances through one to one meetings. <P>Result: All farms in the training program will have completed business plans, record-keeping books, file crop reports, cost of production calculations and file Schedule F. Provide technical assistance to 15 socially disadvantaged farms each year that increases their knowledge of USDA programs including: NAP, NRCS, RMA, FSA, Organic Certification, GAP/GHP, SARE. <P>Result: All farmers will participate in at least one of the programs. Provide technical assistance to farms per year in locating their own long term site for farming- either leased or owned property.<P> Result: Two farms per year will locate their own long-term site for farming and at the end of 3 years 6 farms will have established themselves as new independent specialty crop farms with and earning target of at least $10,000 gross revenue/acre/year in sales. Provide technical assistance to farms towards accessing non-traditional markets . <P>Result: At the end of 3 years, 20 farms will have established 2 or more regular market channels including but not limited to CSA, wholesale, farmers markets, restaurants, schools or institutions, and regularly-scheduled public events.
NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARY: Minnesota Food Association will provide outreach, technical assistance and training to assist 15 socially disadvantaged farms (up to 40 farmers) each year in rural Minnesota and Western Wisconsin towards owning, operating and maintaining their farm enterprises. While Minnesota's population remains predominantly Caucasian and Minnesota-born, it has the largest Somali community, the largest Hmong community and the fastest growing Karen/Burmese and Bhutanese communities. Often uprooted from an agrarian culture, many wish to preserve and pass on the culture of farming. Minnesota farm business practices, record-keeping, marketing, attending to food safety and organic practices, and access to farmer support programs are all new and different. While highly motivated, their search for resources can be discouraging. The existing immigrant and refugee resettlement programs do not address agriculture as an educational or career opportunity, whereas they are really interested in agriculture. MFA and AAHWM are changing this perception and practice at both grassroots and institutional levels. Founded in 1983, Minnesota Food Association's mission is to build a more sustainable food system through re-localizing the food system. We create opportunities for family farms. We provide training, enterprise development, networking and education. MFA has been training immigrant farmers since 1998 primarily Southeast Asian/Hmong and Latino and now including Burmese, Caucasian women, East African, African-American and Bhutanese farms. MFA created a curriculum called Breaking New Ground: Learning to manage a Small-Scale Farm in the United States to teach business development and risk management to new farms. We are currently refining our production curriculum, hand-in-hand with the farmers. The project trains in farm enterprise establishment and operations, including business planning, costs of production, record keeping, crop reports, production, organic certification, GAP certification, marketing, distribution, connections with potential farm land, and connections to USDA and other farmer support programs. All farms will complete the organic certification process and have a business plan in place. Two new independent socially disadvantaged sustainable farms will be established each year (6 by 2012). We will provide these services through our Big River Farms Training Program in collaboration with the Association for the Advancement of Hmong Women in Minnesota who will provide community outreach and connections to land. Marketing includes CSAs, wholesale, restaurants and other alternative markets and all farmers will have established at least 2 different market channels. Approaches include 10 winter workshops, 10-20 in-field training sessions, 12 - 18 individual one-on-one training sessions, 6 or more farmer forums, end-of-season All Farmers Meeting, farm tours, regional workshops and conferences. Key partnerships are with UMN Extension, FSA, RMA, NRCS and SARE programs, as well as other nonprofits, aiming for all farmers to have a program relationship with at least one USDA program after 3 years.
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APPROACH: Minnesota Food Association (MFA), in partnership with Association for the Advancement of Hmong Women in Minnesota (AAHWM), will train immigrant farms to increase their understanding and skills in agricultural business management and vegetable crop production. MFA operates an Agricultural Training Center with a demonstration vegetable farm and other leased plots for training farms. MFA's working relationships with socially disadvantaged farms is based on listening to their needs and successes. In 2007, MFA began a marketing and distribution program to train farms in the production, post harvest handling and business practices necessary for selling into the wholesale market. In 2008, MFA integrated the CSA into the training program with the immigrant training farms producing for the CSA and learning hands-on about running a CSA. Two farms in the training program have already started their own small CSA on a trial basis. Because most all their CSA members are members of their communities, this has a direct impact on getting local, healthy food, produced by socially disadvantaged farmers into low income immigrant communities. The Association for the Advancement of Hmong Women (AAHWM) is a social service agency serving Hmong and other SE Asian communities since 1981. A key activity for Hmong families is gardening which addresses a variety of needs - traditions, culture, family ties, trauma, elderly health, food, income. MFA and AAHWM will share the farmer coordinator staff. Big River Farms, MFA's integrated training program, includes training new farmers in production and farm business enterprise and our marketing and distribution. Training includes 10 winter classroom sessions, 12 - 18 individual sessions and 10-20 in-field training sessions, other workshops and conferences, 6 "farmers forums", end-of-year All Farmers Meeting, and Annual Immigrant Farming Conference. Farmers sell to the BRF CSA and BRF wholesale, including Chipotle. This revenue has a significant impact on the individual farmer's ability to grow their farming enterprise. Farmers weigh in all the factors affecting their operations and decide which crops, how much acreage and how to manage their farm. It is real-life training, with MFA closely assisting with support and risk mitigation. These are the only immigrant farmers in MN to be organic certified and GAP certified. We are building relationships and breaking down stereotypes between wholesalers and new immigrant farmers. The success of the program will be based on both qualitative and quantitative measures of effectiveness. Systems are in place to collect the following data: the number of farmers reached and ethnic diversity; farmer recruitment and retention; # of one to one sessions with farms, workshops, production yields, sales, acreage, etc.; # farms organic certified; # farms with business plans; # farms GAP certified; # farms involved in which USDA programs; and # farms establishing their own farm business enterprises.