Facilitating Success For Beginning Farmers and Ranchers in Washington`s Remote Island Communities.

The long-term goal of this project is to assist beginning farmers and ranchers (BFRs) with establishing, growing, and improving farm enterprises in two neighboring counties composed of isolated islands in Northwest Washington State. This project will accomplish this goal by:Offering training opportunities to BFRs through multiple workshop series;Expanding the curriculum and training capacity of the Organic Farm School;Removed from projectFacilitating BFR access to local farmland;Offering technical assistance on business planning, financial management and marketing;Providing a mentoring program linking regional elder farmers to local BFRs.These five strategies together address key barriers for most BFRs: the need for production training, education and mentoring, access to affordable land and business skills including financial and marketing planning. By offering a collaborative approach that addresses barriers in each of these areas, this project will have a powerful impact on the
growth and lasting success of BFRs in our region.This project seeks to accomplish two primary goals:Assist BFRs in entering farming and establishing successful farm enterprises andAssist BFRs in successfully building, managing and improving these enterprises.This project seeks to achieve these goals with the objectives below.Objective 1: Provide BFRs in the San Juan Islands and on Whidbey Island opportunities to increase their knowledge on key topics through a series of workshops.The output of this objective will be a series of six workshops addressing key topics repeated on four islands in San Juan and Island counties for audiences (1), (3) and (4) for a total of 24 total workshop events with 360 attendees annually. The workshops will complement and expand on existing agriculture curricula offered by the WSU Small Farms and Community Food Systems program. Workshops will cover crop production, livestock and poultry production, food safety, marketing, business planning and financial
management. This output addresses the difficulty, time, and expense to island BFRs of attending workshops on the mainland; increased regional demand for vegetables, fruit, seed, local meat and poultry products; suitability of island climate, soils, and agricultural practices to forage and animal production; food safety issues; and a need for training in business development, marketing, and financial management. The outcome will be the implementation of beneficial changes in farm production and business practices by at least 70% of BFRs served.Objective 2: Provide BFRs from the West Coast and around the country the opportunity to attend a full-time BFR training program that includes in-depth training on livestock and forage management, mechanics, financial management, and marketing.The primary output of this objective is an expansion of the curricula, staff and student farm at the Organic Farm School for audiences (2), (3) and (4). The impetus for these outputs predominantly originated
from the requests of past OFS graduates. While the OFS has previously focused its training primarily on fresh vegetable and seed production, OFS graduates see many local meat and poultry markets expanding rapidly and there is a desire to acquire the skills to serve these expanding markets. Adding livestock, poultry and forage production to both the classroom curriculum as well as the student farm will offer the OFS students the opportunity to thoroughly learn and practice these skills. The other most frequently requested additions to the OFS curriculum by graduates are mechanical skills training and increased training in financial management and marketing. The OFS currently serves 8-9 students per year. This project will increase the OFS capacity to serve 15-16 students per year. To date 80% OFS graduates continue to farm in some capacity and 40% manage farms. The OFS seeks to train 39 aspiring farmers through this project, thus likely creating 16 new BFR farm businesses with 17
additional BFRs working towards farm ownership. The OFS will become one of the very few experiential farmer training programs nationwide to include substantial training on the topics of livestock, mechanics, finances and marketing, and this training could be adapted to, and replicated in, other regions.Objective 3: Removed from projectObjective 4: Promote and assist land access and/or land transfers for BFRs by linking new farmers to retiring farmers and/or absentee farmland owners and assisting with assessment of farmland suitability.The output of this objective is to create a system to identify and assess available farmland and to facilitate BFR access to land through leases, sales, and other strategies, for BFR audiences (1), (3), and (4). The estimated value of land and buildings per farm is $756,469 in San Juan County and $575,839 in Island County (2012 Ag Census). Such land values are prohibitive for most BFRs, yet there are thousands of acres of land that were historically
farmed and must be actively farmed to ensure compliance with conservation easements and current-use taxation programs. Through this project, BFRs will be linked to farmland identified as available and suitable. Impetus for this objective comes directly from numerous BFRs, conservation organizations, agricultural strategic action plans, and landowners and is supported by a public desire to maintain the agricultural character and productivity of the islands. This project seeks to link 15 BFRs to farmland. The developed strategies could be used in any rural area with underutilized farmland.Objective 5: Enable Beginning Farmers and Ranchers to develop and implement business and marketing plans for farm and ranch enterprises.For new ag businesses, there is little room for trial and error. Business planning services are available through local Economic Development Councils and Small Business Development Centers, but these resources are often not tailored to farming. USDA Rural Development
provides resources but has no physical presence in the islands. Northwest Agriculture Business Center (NABC) has no physical presence in the islands, but strives to support ag business development services in these two counties although on a limited basis. Through this project, NABC will provide one-on-one business development assistance to at least 40 BFRs. NABC will provide in-depth technical assistance in developing a feasibility study and business plan, including sourcing capital, to 6 of these 40 and assistance in value-added product development to 2 of these. Results will be shared regionally and with federal and state representatives.Objective 6: Develop and implement an on-farm mentoring program to provide one-on-one consulting to local BFRs by existing local elder farmers.During the first years of a farm operation, BFRs encounter numerous challenges that an experienced farmer could easily address. This output involves creation of 3 mentor teams of two farmers each with
experience in farm production and business management who will mentor up to 6 BFR operations 8 months of the year. As the result, BFRs will save time and money, improve their farming practices, and increase their chances of success. The mentoring concept has been effectively implemented in other parts of the country. This program could expand to other Washington State counties in the future.