Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Training for Agricultural Organizations and Individual Service Providers

7 anti-racism and equity organized trainings were provided this year in May, June, July, September, and October (3-part) to Maine service providers through Beginning Farmer Resource Network of Maine (BFRN) as well as the newly formed Farm and Rancher Stress Assistance Network in the Northeast. From this direct invitation recruitment strategy, as well as encouraging these recipients to share the training registration information with co-workers and other agricultural organizations they collaborate within Maine, 190 people participated in the trainings.

MOFGA invited the Maine Farmer Resource Network to participate in this project through an announcement at our quarterly network meeting and follow up emails.

Seven organizations accepted the invitation to participate in facilitated DEI training with an equity consultant. Matches between organizations and equity consultants have been made and formalized with contracts. The 5 nonprofit organizations have begun engagement with their consultants. It took longer to find a good fit for the Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry and the University of Maine Cooperative Extension because of the size of those institutions. The number of people impacted by these relationships is 185, which includes the majority of staff and board at each non profit organization (5) and a steering committee at the larger agricultural institutions (2).

Prior to all training offered through this grant, a pre-training assessment of BFRN was conducted the project manager. The assessment showed us, among other demographics, the following about the service providers reached during this grant: 1) they are 99% white and largely heterosexual; 2) they do not identify with having a disability; 3) they have achieved a high level of education; 4) 70% see a need for diversity, equity, and inclusion training in their workplace. Participants in the assessment expressed that their organizations need to improve supporting specifically Black, Indigenous, people of color, immigrants and refugees and LGBTQ+ communities. Only 21% of MFRN service providers had attended anti-racism and cultural competency training before. While 70% felt comfortable talking about their own privilege, only 58% felt comfortable talking about privilege and bias with co-workers and 21% felt comfortable talking about issues of social justice with farmers.

As noted in last year's update, we adjusted the timeline of the project to first offer training and then, in the second year of the project (2022), focus on these deeper relationships with equity consultants and organizations. 

As of January 2023, 4 out of the 7 organizations have completed their relationships with equity consultants. These relationships included equity assessments for each organization, the formation of an equity stewardship team with staff, foundational training conducted by the consultant, and suggestions of work moving forward. The remaining 3 organizations in progress with equity consultants include the 2 large state institutions and 1 non profit organization. These relationships have proven more difficult due to more embedded issues of institutional power structures as well as organization turnover.

In a process and survey designed by the advisory board, all organizations completed a pre-equity consultant relationship. Those that have finished this relationship were given a similar post equity consultant survey. Beyond this survey, Bo Dennis conducted in depth interviews with each equity stewardship team at the organizations who completed the equity consultant relationship. Some of the questions asked in the qualitative interviews included:

• What were the outcomes and impacts on your organization working with your consultant both internally and externally?
• What barriers are you currently facing in implementing equity and justice principles in your work?
• Who engaged with the project? All staff or just leadership?

Some key findings from the post survey as well as these interviews include:

• Benefit of having an external equity consultant to hold them accountable to integrating equity changes
• Ongoing impact of established internal equity stewardship teams to bring the work forward post equity consultant
• Importance of staff and key leadership having a shared language and understanding of the organization's stance on issues of racial justice
• This project sparking momentum and solidarity amongst agriculture service providers
• Fear of turn over at the organization affecting momentum
• Challenges onboarding new staff to the equity journey of the organization
• Challenges of time and capacity for staff to fully integrate equity changes into their work plans

By January 2022, all seven organizations were matched with professional equity consultants and had begun their work together with project design and starting to conduct organizational assessments. We adjusted the timeline of the project to first offer training and then, in the second year of the project, focused on these deeper relationships with equity consultants and organizations. Because the relationships took considerable time to establish, offering the training first provided an opportunity for organizational staff to build a shared language. We noted the milestone as in progress because we did not issue a post-facilitation assessment at the end of 2021 because the equity consultations are just beginning. We proposed issuing a mid-year assessment to complete the milestone. 

In the spring of 2021, Bo Dennis met one-on-one with all of the organizations’ leadership, along with with a large number of equity consultants, in order to make  the best matches. Equity consultants and organization leads then independently started relationships and signed contracts, which this SARE grant reimburses. Prior to engaging with the equity consultants, executive directors of the organizations completed a pre-survey to establish a baseline. Each contract agreement includes an equity assessment of the organization, foundational training for board and staff, and collaborative development of a road map for continued learning and actionable steps to make the agriculture organization more equitable. Each organization is of a different scale and varying position in their current commitment to equity, so exact details of process are specific to that relationship, while all agreeing to the outcomes. 

The following trainings were offered in 2021. In total there were 190 participants.

Supporting LGBTQ+ Maine farmers: This workshop included a LGBTQ+ 101 training provided by EqualityMaine, a presentation specific to supporting queer farmers, and a farmer panel featuring LGBTQ+ farmers from Maine sharing their experiences. There were 40 participants. Thanks to the training, 72% of attendees stated that they had increased their confidence in identifying and talking about issues such as homophobia and cissexsim as a result of this workshop. Action steps attendees committed to included: integrating gender pronouns into intake forms, expanding representation of farmer presenters to include queer growers, calling out discrimination in the workplace, and other ways of signaling allyship within an organization. 

Wabanaki REACH 3-day decolonization training for conservation communities. 47 participants. This training was particularly impactful for service providers that work at land focused organizations in considering how they are engaged in continuing colonization. 

Anti-bias trainings with Cross Cultural Community Services. 103 Participants. This 3-part training series addressed race, white privilege, equity, how to confront discrimination and bias in Maine and practicing courageous conversations about race.

In addition to the trainings listed above, a Cross Organization Equity Cohort has formed to help digest and reflect on these trainings. Meetings are held monthly with all of BFRN service providers being invited. On average 10 people representing  various organizations attend each month. These are currently facilitated by Bo Dennis but in 2022 this will change to a collectively held facilitation space to encourage cross organizational leadership. While not originally in the project design, this has proved effective in building  relationships and accountability for integrating equity work. The goals of this group are to:

• Help with internal accountability of organizations to move racial equity and social justice work forward, especially after larger trainings
• Provide space for staff to connect across organizations in order to build collective momentum in the agriculture service provider community for equitable systems change. Participants  share ideas and talk about what each home organization is working through.
• Promote wider organization staff attendance to SARE PDP funded training, once training is scheduled. 

As noted above, this goal was completed for 4 of the 7 organizations but the equity consultant relationship is still in progress for 3 organizations. Each relationship includes foundation core training and will be reported upon in our final project report when all relationships are concluded.  Currently 120 staff and board members at these 4 organizations combined have attended training led by external equity consultants.

This goal has shifted instead to provide facilitated conversations with the Maine Farmer Resource Network (MFRN) around the values and impact of agriculture service providers in Maine and service providers' commitments to equity and racial justice. Bo Dennis facilitated an initial conversation in August of 2022 and is currently coordinating with an external facilitator, Deb Bicknell, to work with MFRN in spring of 2023 to clearly define the group's values and commitments.

For the 4 organizations who completed their relationship with equity consultants, clear changes to policies and cultural norms happened, as highlighted in the post equity consultant survey and qualitative interviews conducted. Below are some of these examples, and in many cases each one listed is happening at multiple organizations. 

• Formed an ongoing staff equity stewardship team that meets regularly to implement suggested changes from the equity consultant and lessons learned from all staff trainings
• Developed a salary and compensation report for increased transparency for all staff
• Improved staff recruitment process and increased focus on staff wellness
• Integrated an equity lens into technical assistance processes for farmers
• Began asking for feedback from farmers about their demographics as well as experience working with the organizations
• Website changes
• Included pronouns and changed other language in email and openings for events
• Pairing land acknowledgments with tangible land justice commitments and actions
• Created more inclusive building infrastructure such as gender neutral bathrooms

A central impact of this project thus far is the 7 participating organizations' staff moving beyond discussions about equity and racial justice in broad terms to places of action to integrate changes into organizational work both internally and externally. These changes will impact the farmers' and community members' experiences of working with each organization.

Each organization conducts surveys of their own seeking feedback from farmers and other stakeholders. One of the questions on the pre and post survey was if and how organizations are asking farmers about their interactions with service providers. Through this project, organizations made a commitment to start asking farmers about their experience. For some organizations, this feedback from farmers needed to start one step back to understand who was interacting with their programming, before asking about their experience. Some direct examples came from a new University of Maine Cooperative Extension demographic survey and Maine Farmland Trust land stewards asking a question about support needed from the organization while on site visits. Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association Organic Certification plans to launch a similar questionnaire in 2023. 

As listed in a previous milestone reflection, changes have already been implemented at various organizations to increase the accessibility of their programming for farmers. A best practices publication of the themes of this project and changes implemented will be written in 2023.

All seven organizations completed a pre-equity consultant relationship survey as designed by the advisory team of this overall project and then, upon beginning the relationship with their matched equity consultant, did a more thorough assessment.