From Production to Market: Enhancing the Competitiveness and Sustainability of Beginning Minority and Limited Resource Farmers in California

<p>NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARY:<br/> Over the past few decades, the farming landscape of California has changed dramatically as an increasing number of immigrant and minority farmers are trying their hand at agriculture. More than 40 percent of all reported minority farmers are beginning farmers. As recently as 2004, tens of thousands of Hmong and Mien refugees arrived in California, and many of them turned to farming as their primary livelihood. In Fresno County alone, half of all family farms are operated by minorities. Increasingly, Latino farmworkers are looking to move away from farm labor to establish their own farms. While the U.S. Census of Agriculture of 2007 reports 9,000 Latino farms, 4,000 Asian farms, 320 African American farms and 452 Native farms in California, we believe these numbers to be under-reported. As such, many minority farmers remain unidentified and
underserved. Although the acreage of immigrant and minority farms is relatively small, their sheer numbers, including more than 20 percent of all California farms, their contribution to California's crop diversity their value in terms of specialty commodities grown, their role in provision of culturally relevant foods for California's diverse population, and their importance in ensuring food security for their oftentimes economically disadvantaged communities all render minority farmers an important part of California agriculture. Clearly there is a pressing need to provide culturally relevant outreach. In collaboration with the National Center for Appropriate Technology and 15 community-based organizations or Cooperative Extension offices in 10 California Counties, UC Berkeley aims to this provide this needed outreach. Our long term goal for this project is to enhance the
competitiveness and sustainability of beginning minority, immigrant, and tribal farmers and ranchers in California. We will conduct training and outreach to Latino, Southeast Asian and Native farmers and mentors in 10 counties. Specifically, we will offer in-depth, culturally-relevant training to beginning minority farmers in combination with capacity-building to partner organizations to improve access to sustainable farming information and technical support, increase adoption of organic and sustainable farming/ranching practices, enhance the economic viability of minority farms, strengthen farmer to farmer training networks, provide referrals to agencies that provide access to land, financial, and other services, and improve food safety and enhance food security for beginning minority farmers and their communities. To achieve these objectives, we will provide training and outreach in
five topics over three years in each geographic region. Two topics related will be in sustainable production, as determined by farmers in each region. The other topics are food safety, financial literacy, and market linking. Outreach will involve hands on workshops, in depth coaching for grower leaders, farmer to farmer learning circles and mentoring, and capacity building for local organizations to provide ongoing support beyond the life of this grant.
<p>APPROACH:<br/>Nested Training Modules: Each of our 5 proposed training modules will be implemented in each county cluster. Each year farmers and institutions that serve them in each county will receive training in either sustainable production, food safety or business planning and market linking. Needs Assessment Through stakeholder focus groups, assess current practices and specific needs in each of 10 counties. Curriculum Development Create and refine culturally relevant curriculum to address identified subject and language needs. All handouts and materials will be largely pictorial with minimal text, especially in situations in which neither English, Spanish, Lao, Thai or HmongMien languages are understood. Grower Leader Development Recruit and train grower-leaders in each county in above topics, utilizing in depth, on farm coaching and follow up as a model to
support adoption of practice and training them to be farmer mentors. Mentoring Pair grower leaders with both newer mentee farmers and mentor farmers, who are established sustainable farms ideally of the same linguistic and/or cultural group. Mentor farms will, as relevant to the local context, host on farm tours, field days, and workshops at least once a year on related topics, and will provide timely advice to participating farmers. Hands-on Workshops: Provide hands on workshops in each county for each of our 5 training modules, Sustainable Farming/Ranching, Food Safety, Business Planning, and Market Linking, over three years. Translation provided as needed. On Farm Coaching Following workshop attendance, project members responsible for the training module will make at least 3 on-farm visits to participating grower-leaders. Visits will include assessment of current on-farm practices,
technical support, follow up & evaluation. Translation provided as needed. Farmer to farmer networking Foster farmer to farmer networking, training and relationship building among grower leaders, mentor farms and newer farmers, and between farmers and Community Based Organizations and UCCE offices. Grower leaders will host 2 farm based learning circles each year on topic or topics being implemented that year. Enhance Institutional Capacity Each partner has different organizational capacity and different capacity building needs. As such, partners are invited to participate in any or all workshops being offered to farmers. A separate train the trainer food safety training will be provided to interested partners and other institutions each year in three regions of California. We will provide coaching to county level partners to support follow up outreach. Referrals Provide referrals, as
needed, to partners and other organizations providing IDAs, loans, NRCS opportunities, land access, marketing outlets and other farmer opportunities. Participatory Evaluation Conduct bi-annual participatory face to face evaluations with all stakeholders, partners and collaborators in each county cluster, and among all Co PDs on the effectiveness of our training and outreach program.</p><p>
PROGRESS: <br/>2012/09 TO 2013/08 <br/>Target Audience: The target audience includes beginning, minority farmers including Native American, Latino, Southeast Asian and low-income aspiring urban farmers. Changes/Problems: - Fiscal uncertainty of non-profits has become worse with lack of farm bill and and absence of multi-year funding streams. - One of our community partners lost funding for staff impeding their ability to fulfil some of their commitments with our project. - Another community partner shifted their programmatic priorities away from serving minority communities. These have not caused significant deviations from our project goals, but they have had an impact. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? One of the goals of this grant is capacity building of local organizations to provide ongoing technical support to
farmers beyond the duration of this grant. As such, to date, we have provided �train the trainer� to 26 organizations including Cooperative Extension Advisors, Government and Non-profits. We share our resources and training materials and demonstrate on farm assessment techniques and mentoring strategies to participating organizations. In addition, all our partners (15) have enhanced their capacity to measure and monitor the impact of their programs, by participating in our training and sharing our evaluation methodologies that measure changes in knowledge, action and condition. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Results have been communicated via presentations at UC Berkeley, the California Small Farm Conference, and Ecofarm. An important venue for disseminating information among our Native American audience has been through the Mid-Klamath
Foodshed Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/164617520311363/ Announcements and flyers about our foodshed workshops and events are posted, followed by photos and commentary from participants about the benefits. In year three, we will use the Facebook page to further measure impact. Additional outreach has been done through NCAT�s email networks, as well as tapping into regional farming networks. In year 3, Results from this project will be disseminated through conferences, on NCAT�s ATTRA website, and through NCAT�s ATTRAnews. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? We plan to finalize implementation of our workshops as planned, continue with one-on-one follow up, and do post-assessments to measure enduring changes in knowledge, action and condition.<br/>
PROGRESS: <br/>2011/09/01 TO 2012/08/31 <br/>OUTPUTS: The primary goal of this project is to enhance the competitiveness and sustainability of beginning minority, immigrant, and tribal farmers and ranchers in 10 California counties. Our approach involves conducting farmer needs assessment, developing curricula and providing training through workshops and coaching, fostering farmer to farmer networking and learning, enhancing local institutional capacity to provide ongoing outreach, and measuring impact. Outputs completed during the first reporting period are the following: 1) Needs Assessments: Conducted needs assessments in 6 ""county clusters"", obtaining input from over 90 beginning minority farmers (urban, Latino, Southeast Asian and Native) through a mix of focus groups and administration of mini-surveys. Identified and recruited 15 ""grower leaders"" to be trained in all
workshop modules and host learning circles. Results communicated to local partners. 2) Institutional Capacity Building: Enhanced capacity of county-based organizations to provide outreach and technical assistance to beginning minority farmers. Compiled farmer outreach lists from multiple sources and shared with local partners. Trained local partners in a) needs assessment methodology, and b) database creation and management for farmer data and participation. 3) Workshops: Based on feedback from farmers' needs, we held eleven workshops reaching more than 200 beginning farmers in six counties. Flyers were created and mailed to all farmers on outreach lists, posted at local stores and on partner websites/regional list-serves. Follow-up phone calls and farm visits to recruit additional participants. Workshops included: 1 Farm Planning Module with three beginning peri-urban multi-stakeholder
production farms (will affect up to 15 beginning farmers including immigrants, ex-convicts); 2 Site visits to each farm location, assisting with farm plan and linking to NRCS programs. - 1 Pastured Poultry workshop reaching 21 participants. Follow up in year 2. At least 1 farmer has purchased a new flock of chickens; 1 Food safety workshop reaching 25 Mien participants. Follow up complete with 2 farmers; 1 Diversified Farming workshop - 6 Mien participants attended. Follow up provided to 2 farmers; 1 Market-linking workshop - 11 Mien farmer attendees and 9 fresh produce buyers (wholesale, retail, chef, and school districts). Follow up provided to 3 participants; 6 workshops in Humboldt county with native and beginning farmers: 1 canning (15 attendees), 1 butchering (15), 1 mushroom (20), 1 pruning (25), 1 grafting (15) and 1 drip irrigation (5) reaching total of 95 beginning farmers. 4)
Farmer to Farmer Networking: Farmers shared knowledge and experience and contact information to explore collaborative purchasing and sales opportunities. Several co-taught workshops by sharing knowledge on cultural butchering practices, mushroom identification, fish filet and canning techniques, and standard operating procedures for food safety. 5) Curriculum Development: Updated Food Safety Training Materials for urban farmers developed. PowerPoint and Food Safety Train the Trainer materials developed. Impact assessment forms created, piloted and finalized. PARTICIPANTS: Christy Getz, PI, provided overall guidance on the project and coordination with Cooperative Extension Specialists. Jennifer Sowerwine, Project Coordinator, has coordinated all project activities including preparing for, providing training in and conducting needs assessments, creating information sharing platforms and
providing ongoing updates to all project partners, and developing and providing training in evaluation tools. Jennifer has provided training to all partners in conducting facilitated needs assessments and farmer ""mini-surveys"" as a form of rapid farm appraisal. Jennifer has provided training to all partners in the workshop-coach connection approach to training to enhance farmer adoption of skills. Jennifer also has developed Food Safety training materials and provided training in food safety and market-linking. Rex Dufour and Marisa Alcorta project co-leads from NCAT, have worked closely with Jennifer Sowerwine in developing collaborative communication tools, implementing needs assessments and implementing training. Rex provided training in diversified farming, whole farm planning and pastured poultry. Marisa Alcorta provided training to Lao Family Stockton in database management for
farmer outreach and translation in Spanish language. Marisa has been developing Spanish-language curricula in response to farmer needs assessment related to legal and business planning advice, and pollination. Partner organizations have assisted in recruiting farmers to attend meetings, and have provided in-kind use of facilities for meetings and workshops. Staff from Soil Born Farms, Mid-Klamath Watershed Council and UC Cooperative Extension Humboldt have provided one-on-one follow up for farmers. We have added two collaborators on the project including Graciela Gomez with the Modesto NRCS, providing outreach to beginning Latino farmers and the Mid-Klamath Watershed Council, who have established a Food-shed program to further the grant's initiatives. Training has been provided to all project partners and collaborators in impact assessments--developing methodologies to measure changes in
knowledge, skills, action and condition--a challenge that many organizations face. TARGET AUDIENCES: Our project focuses explicitly on addressing the needs of beginning and limited resource Southeast Asian (Hmong, Mien, Lao, Vietnamese), Latino/Hispanic, Native (Karuk, Hupa, Yurok), Urban and other socially disadvantaged, minority or immigrant farmers and ranchers. While we do not exclude other beginning farmers from any of our training opportunities, our outreach efforts emphasize the above target audiences. Our efforts include an innovative approach to farmer training that moves beyond conventional workshop/field day models to include strategies that encourage adoption of practices learned including the following: First, conducting a needs assessment to determine what training the farmers need. Second, developing culturally and context relevant curricula to address those needs (eg.
urban needs are different than rural; highly graphic/pictorial materials more relevant for limited English speakers/readers). Third, identifying key ""grower-leaders"" who can facilitate farmer-to-farmer training beyond the life of the grant and provide mentoring opportunities for those farmers. Fourth, providing hands-on engaged workshops with on-farm or one-on-one coaching/follow up to support adoption of practices learned. Fifth, providing training to local organizations to support them in providing ongoing outreach and technical support to the farmers beyond the life of the grant and sixth, providing referrals to partners and other organizations as needed, providing loans, NRCS opportunities, marketing or land opportunities. We are currently in the midst of providing mentoring, and coaching. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Not relevant to this project.</p>