Progress report for ENE23-183
Project Information
The service providers that will benefit from this project are in the sectors of farm/land/conservation, law, climate resilience, real estate, non-profits and land trust. The service providers in each of these sectors benefit by connecting more farmers and land stewards to land that might otherwise be sold to large scale development interests, thereby meeting their goals towards continued agricultural sustainability. Several service providing organizations within the sectors of farm/land/conservation, law, climate resilience, real estate, non-profits and land trust have already expressed interest in sharing new strategies and skills to mitigate farm/land disparities along the lines of race and class in the northeast and are beginning to acquire new skills to help the growing number aging farmers transition land in ways that promote future sustainability.
Service providers will gain skills and tools to better facilitate land successions and transitions for and to Black Indigenous and other People of Color (BIPOC) land stewards. The service providers will grow in their awareness of land based inequities and current methods key individuals, organizations and the advisory committee are taking to utilize their agency and power to address land and farm owner inequities. The trainers of the trainers (service providers) have a proven track record of initiating intentional BIPOC land access, transfer and land back projects. The process of intentional land succession and transfers requires adaptable methodologies. Sharing these methodologies and approaches with service providers from the service provider experience, participants will become better equipped to adopt, reference and facilitate the clients/farmers succession or transfer process using relationship based processes for intentional BIPOC land transfers and access in the Northeast.
15 service providers in the sectors of conservation, climate resilience, real estate, law and land trust will conduct educational succession planning programs that teach new strategies to a. 15 aging Farmers b. 30 Farmers of Color in the Northeast c. 15 additional service providers servicing the MA, CT, RI, VT region.
i. These educational programs will equip aging farmers with the new strategies and the skills to succession plan with greater confidence, meet and engage potential farm successors, receive economic benefits from the transfer and ensure diversified farming as a sustainability measure through their successors. ii. Farmers of Color will be equipped with new strategies and skills to meet and engage farmers looking to transition land, actively engage in negotiations during the succession process and gain the skills to finalize the succession process and uplift diversified agricultural practices as sustainability measures on the land. iii. 15 Service providers will adopt acquired skills and resources to complete succession plans and "close the deal" in ways that are mutually beneficial. 15 Farmers will show a willingness to engage these new strategies. 5-7 successions of farmland in the Northeast to Farmers of Color will occur within the period of this 3 year project.
The service providers that will benefit from this project are in the sectors of farm/land/conservation, law, climate resilience, real estate, non-profits and land trust. The service providers in each of these sectors benefit by connecting more farmers and land stewards to land that might otherwise be sold to large scale development interests, thereby meeting their goals towards continued agricultural sustainability. Several service providing organizations within the sectors of farm/land/conservation, law, climate resilience, real estate, non-profits and land trust have already expressed interest in sharing new strategies and skills to mitigate farm/land disparities along the lines of race and class in the northeast and are beginning to acquire new skills to help the growing number aging farmers transition land in ways that promote future sustainability.
Cooperators
- (Educator)
Educational Approach
a. Service providers organizations will be contacted in late March to early April and informed of the grant approval and funding. They will take part in preliminary conversations to familiarize themselves with the project goals and can plan for recruitment to begin within their networks during the farming slow season (between Nov and Feb.) via phone call and email. Starting large to go small, the initial reach out will be to Land Trust, Land based organizations and Land based non-profits. We will make contact with directors, board members and personnel that are responsible for land acquisition, matching and allocation. All of the essential service providers these organizations work with during the land succession and acquisition process will be identified (attorneys, municipal agents, real estate agents, conservation agents, banks, boards and donors) and contacted to take part in the training. By extension both retiring and new entry farmers will also be touched by and inform the direction of the service provider training. Having an understanding of both the aging farmer looking to transition and the BIPOC farmer looking to acquire land will drive the type of training the service providers receive.
b. 30 service providers will be engaged in the project and will be divided up into 2 cohorts based on current initiatives, focus area commitments their affiliated organizations /or they themselves as sole proprietors have committed to.
c. The participants will engage in workshops in person and virtually. They will have "homework" between educational workshops and will participate in phone checkins or in person checkins as much as possible. Participants will receive instructive materials to help strengthen their awareness, analysis and language related to race and equity as well as materials on how to recognize the power and agency they hold as service providers. This materials will be referenced throughout the process and participants will be mentored in their ability to apply a race and equity lens to all aspects of their work.
d. An evaluation tool listing participant experience and engagement prompts will be held in a conversational, self reflective process between the with the PI and with input from the Advisory Community. There will also be a cohort accountability and evaluation process where participants will share out success and challenges to learn from one another's experience and become more comfortable navigating real life scenarios. These evaluations and cohort share out/accountability process will be held on a quarterly basis for the duration of the project. The information brought up in share outs and accountability circles as well as advisory committee input will be used to reshape the education plan in real time.
Milestones
Engagement: Status: In process
March 2024 15 service providers in the sectors of conservation, climate resilience, real estate law and land trust will come together to help shape the educational materials that will be used to teach service providers new strategies to increase BIPOC land tenure in the NE. Beginning in October of 2024 the Key individuals will begin meeting to build relationship. They will share their experiences and the current projects and practices they are currently engaged in. They will share successes, pitfalls, beneficial check points, systems, the types of trainings that helped shape a lens towards racial equity on land and the personal and professional changes they and their organizations had to undergo in the process.
2 Cohorts of up to 15 service providers will be recruited over the 3 year period to undergo workshops and trainings based on the information recommended by the key individuals and the project advisory team. These cohort members will ultimately work to engage succession processes for 7 BIPOC farmers looking for land and 7 transitioning farmers/land access/transfer opportunities in the NE.
Accomplishments:
Learning: status: not begun
Every November, December, January and February in 2023 and 2024 15 service providers will be identified and placed in 2 cohorts will participate in monthly focus groups to support the implementation of BIPOC land transfer and farm land succession planning frameworks. Building off of awareness and experience, the workshops will be tailored to participant needs while pushing participants growing edges in the subject. In November of 2024 we will also incorporate out reach plans for service providers to begin recruitment of BIPOC land stewards, transitioning farmers and agency/service provider specific land acquisition opportunities. In late Feb, early March and late October of 2024 service providers and we will begin the ground work for intentional BIPOC transfers in accordance with the objectives of the verification and review tools. Between March and October of 2024 the PI will meet with service providers in small groups on a one on one basis as their schedules allow. We will meet in person to help foster relationship. The PI will look for ways key individuals and the advisory committee can offer specialized support/mentorship. The PI will be available to assist in holding space during meetings with farmers, workshops and community discussions that the service provider holds.
January of 2025 we will evaluate service provider attitude, ability make time for and center relationship, ways in which the service provider has adjusted, changed or adapted process, policy and procedures to deepen relationship and create room for more diverse perspectives and ways of being. awareness and adoption of race and equity lens in all aspects of their work, awareness and analysis of power and privilege and oppression, create an action plan utilizing the service providers agency held in their role. The review tool and cohort accountability groups will be routinely used throughout the 3 year scope of the project.
March of 2024 to March of 2025 service providers will be evaluated on the number of shifts in process, practices and policies that have lead to deeper relationship and community connection, BIPOC land access and transfer, number of land succession plans cultivated with BIPOC intentional transfers as core components, self reflective evaluations, cohort accountability group evaluations, peer to peer reviews and farmer (service receiver) evaluations. The verification tool and cohort accountability groups will be routinely used throughout out the 3 year scope of the project.
Completion date:
March of 2025 aims to have 7 intentional BIPOC land transfers as a result of the educational training expanding the knowledge and abilities of the service providers that have taken part.
Accomplishments:
Engagement and Evaluation: status: not begun.
Out of the 30 service providers taking part in the project, 15 will adopt practices, policies and procedures into the daily practices of their role/organization. 7 BIPOC farmers and will acquire land and 7 aging farmers will go through succession planning processes that include land based racial equity measures. Out of the 30 service providers taking part our hope is that 15 will begin to more comfortably talk about race and land based inequities with their clients and co-workers and invite people to use their agency to engage in addressing this issue. Evaluations of project success will likely occur a few years into each project. Having the time for the lived experience of this project towards BIPOC land connection to develop and be respectfully communicated out is essential to this process and must be based on the timeline of those involved.
Completion date:
Accomplishments:
Milestone Activities and Participation Summary
Educational activities and events conducted by the project team:
Participants in the project’s educational activities:
Performance Target Outcomes
Performance Target Outcomes - Service Providers
Target #1
15
15 Service providers will adopt acquired skills and resources to complete succession plans and "close the deal" in ways that are mutually beneficial to aging farmers, Farmers of Color in the NE looking for land access with agricultural sustainability in mind.
15
greater than 50 acres
none verified yet still in process
- 6 Consultations
- 2 On-farm demonstrations
- 2 Online trainings
- 2 Tours
- 4 Webinars/talks/presentations
- 6 Workshops/field days
Due to the floods and natural disasters that took place in our region, the start of the project was delayed. I was unable to use my evaluation tools during the first year of the project. Progress in the form of consultations, relationship building through site visits, webinars, conferences, land based DEIJ work and farm field days with both farmers and service providers became the primary focus of 2023. As a result reporting for this section is still in progress.
Performance Target Outcomes - Farmers
Target #1
none yet still in process
greater than 50 acres
none yet still in process