Assisting Farmers in Crisis to Adopt Sustainable Marketing Alternatives

(1) Provide producers with information on sustainable farming and strategic marketing alternatives. Brainstorming sessions were conducted with the Illinois Small Farm Task Force and small-scale farmers to identify enterprises that are considered to have potential for small-scale and beginning farmers. The seven enterprises we chose were:

Agritourism
Agroforestry
Aquaculture
Free-range Poultry
Grass-Based Livestock
Organic Herbs and Vegetables
Viticulture

We were able to obtain a $21,000 grant from the USDA Risk Management Agency to cover a portion of the cost of the binder and other project activities. We developed a binder with production and marketing materials for the seven alternative farming enterprises that have the capacity to increase small farm profitability. These materials came from AATRA and Illinois sources. We also included materials on small farm-based marketing strategies. (This binder, The Small Farm Enterprise and Marketing Workshop Series, was sent with the first year annual report.) All 300 notebooks prepared for this project were distributed throughout the state, including at the seven seminars and workshops conducted at different sites in Illinois during summer 2001. A number of additional events were held in conjunction with Extension and grassroots organizations such as the Southeastern Illinois Sustainable Agriculture Association.

We developed an intensive workshop and mentoring program that assists farmers in crisis to adopt sustainable farming and marketing opportunities. The events were held at the Rock Island Extension Office in East Moline, Lake Land College in Mattoon, Dunn-Richland Economic Development in Carbondale, Shawnee Community College in Ulin, University of Illinois - Springfield, Rend Lake College in Mt. Vernon, and Lincoln Community College in Oglesby. Attendance at these events ranged from approximately five to 15 farmers, four to eight Cooperative Extension agents, and two to 30 college agricultural students and instructors. We chose workshop sites that corresponded to areas with a relatively high percentage of small farms, as identified by University of Illinois Extension members or community college agricultural instructors.

Two seminars, Oglesby in North Central Illinois, and Mt. Vernon in South Central Illinois, featured SARE recipient Herm Beck-Chenoweth and specifically dealt with marketing. In the five enterprise workshops, we featured three topics geographically appropriate for that region. We did not try to cover all seven enterprises in each workshop, but did provide every attendee with the binder containing information on all seven enterprises.

One workshop, given at Shawnee Community College in Ulin, south of Carbondale, was not listed on the brochure promoting the events. This workshop resulted from a call made by Darryl Dillow, agricultural instructor at Shawnee Community College, who asked if we would hold a Saturday workshop specifically for farmers in his area. We responded by scheduling another workshop back-to-back with the one held in Carbondale and had approximately 12 farmers attend.

Speakers for the workshops agreed to “be on call” and act as mentors or give appropriate assistance to workshop attendees if they needed help in future help developing that enterprise. We had at least one farmer-presenter in each workshop as well as University and Extension educators. One farmer-presenter, Joanna Gioja, who spoke about grass-based livestock production and marketing for small farms, was particularly well received. At the age of seventeen, she has been producing and marketing goat milk and grass-based poultry and lamb for more than four years. She made the point that if she could run her operation profitably, any one else could develop a similar business.

Through this project, we are cooperating with Extension and grassroots organizations to sponsor additional sustainable farming and enterprise development workshops and seminars for winter/spring 2002. We cooperated with the AEDI program of Extension and Michael Fields Agricultural Institute to conduct an Advanced Organic Vegetable Workshop in the Davenport, Iowa/East Moline, Illinois area on January 10-12, 2002. This workshop was conducted by three successful organic vegetable farmers, including one farmer from Illinois. There were 50 attendees, including 20 farmers from Illinois. Illinois farmers were provided a scholarship if they attended the workshop and submitted a form. Five scholarships were provided. This was the first time that the Advanced Organic Vegetable Workshop was offered in Illinois and was very well received by both Extension Educators and farmers. Plans are being made to offer future workshops in cooperation with Michael Fields Agriculture Institute and other groups.

In the fall of 2002, two market tours were conducted. Attendance was limited in both tours. The first tour was of the Claytonville Farmers Market, an upscale farmers market in the St. Louis area, and included a meeting with chefs from the area. Approximately 12 farmers, students, and an Extension advisor attended the tour. The second market tour, in the Chicago area, included the Evanston Farmers Market and four ethnic markets. Approximately 10 farmers, students, and Extension educators attended the tour. At both tours the requirements to successfully market to their customers were discussed.

Another educational opportunity for Illinois small and family farmers resulting from this project has been the first NXLeveL agricultural course, “Tilling the Soil of Opportunity,” held in Illinois. We partnered with the Illinois Department of Commerce and Community Development to bring NXLeveL to Illinois. We provided the agricultural expertise. Through this project, we first sponsored six individuals in the NXLeveL Entrepreneurship Trainers’ course in Illinois. This gives us a pool of instructors for conducting NXLeveL agricultural courses in Illinois. The Illinois state budget crisis has impacted the Illinois Department of Commerce and Community Development, so we are working to ensure that a version of entrepreneur development for small-scale farmers is available in Illinois.

The purpose of “Tilling the Soil of Opportunity” is to teach farmers to research and develop their own business plans for their alternative, farm-based business. This in turn increases the likelihood that these businesses will succeed and the farmers will increase their profitability. This first pilot course has enrolled nine farmers, most of whom attended one of our workshops. A separate evaluation of the pilot NXLeveL course “Tilling the Soil of Opportunity,” will be discussed in part three of this section, following the general survey results.

(3) Evaluate the impact of these programs on farmers who participated in the project. A mail survey was conducted to provide information about the participants in the workshops and market tours. The NXLeveL course was followed-up by open-ended interviews of the participants and the instructor that are reported in Part B.

Part A: Survey of Workshop and Other Participants

A total of 67 surveys were mailed to Illinois farmers and Extension personnel, and 33 surveys were returned. This gave us a 49% return rate, an excellent rate of return for a mail-in survey.

Demographics. The participants who returned the survey represented 18 counties in Illinois. The respondents’ ages were as follows: 3% were 18-25, 7% were 26-35, 42% were 36-50, 19% were 51-65, and 7% were more than 65 years old. Twenty-six percent of the respondents were female and 68% were male. Fifty-two percent reported their primary occupation as farmer, 13% were Extension or government agents, 10% were students, and 26% listed their occupations as “other” (this included retired individuals who indicated they also farmed). Most participants (71%) are currently farming and 26% did not farm. Of the farmers who responded, 23% farm between 1-10 acres, 9% farm 11-25 acres, 9% farm between 26-50 acres, 9% farm between 51-100 acres, 32% farm between 101-500 acres and 18% farm more than 500 acres.

Scheduling Events. When asked the optimal time of week and day to schedule these kinds of educational events, 45% chose weekday mornings, 42% chose weekday afternoons, 16% chose weekday evenings, 36% chose Saturday mornings, 16% chose Saturday afternoons, and only 3% chose Saturday evenings. Only 3% identified spring as the best season to hold these types of events, 26% chose summer, 7% chose fall, and 74% chose winter. The time of the week and day responses might be biased because we held the workshops during weekdays. Conversations between the Project Investigators and farmers unable to attend the workshops indicate a preference for Saturday meetings.

Distance from Farms. Of all respondents, 13% indicated that the nearest large urban area was within 10 miles of their farm, 16% indicated that their farm was within 50 miles, 19% indicated that it was within 100 miles, and 32% indicated that the nearest large urban area was more than 100 miles from their farm. As a measure of people’s interest, we asked how far people had traveled to the events and workshops. Of those responding, 7% traveled between 0-10 miles, 16% traveled 11-30 miles, 32% traveled between 31-60 miles, 10% traveled between 61-100 miles, and 32% traveled more than 100 miles to attend the event or workshop.

General Comments. The following are comments written in the spaces provided on the survey sheet:

Need more advertising for the events.
Very useful for grape production.
Need more time between sessions for networking.
Workshop well-organized—excellent instructors—networking was valuable.
Excellent organic workshop. Hold more organic workshops (all levels of knowledge) throughout the state—need row crop, vegetables, and herb courses.
Offer these again—I had conflicts and couldn’t attend more of them.
Keep doing these events—offer a diversity of topic—more on-farm and market tours.
Try listing events in trade journals for small farmers like Small Farm Today.
This information will be helpful in the future—gave me new ideas for expanding my farm business—it was very useful.
Most valuable to hear producers who are actually doing what they are talking about (more than “educators”).
Offer advanced sessions on topics of high interest shortly after initial sessions—then refresher courses a year later.
We are new farmers and this workshop opened our eyes to many possibilities.
Find some way to keep up-to-date contact information for presenters in a database we can access.

Part B: Teaching NXLeveL’s “Tilling the Soil of Opportunity”

Course Issues
Several problems were identified with the current form of NXLeveL that limited its utility to small-scale growers in Illinois. Many of these problems involved the limited time and resources that the farmers had and their expectations from the course.

One major issue with the course itself was the amount of time required to complete the course work. Few if any participants felt they had enough time to put into the course to do a truly good job.

One participant noted that, although he was warned the course was demanding and required a lot of outside time, he had not realized just how much time he would need to “do a good job.” “I was not prepared for the amount of time (the course required.) I didn’t realize how detailed it would be to come up with a business plan. It’s very intense, more like summer school. You need to be ready to knuckle down.”

Another participant stated that time was the only conflict he had with the course. He also noted that this problem stemmed less from the course schedule and more from his other commitments. All of the participants worked off-farm jobs or went to school as well as living and working on their farms (with the exception of the attorney, who taught as well as practiced law.) The course’s demanding schedule of attendance as well as rigorous homework assignments left little latitude for catching up for those who fell behind.

A third participant noted that the course presented “a catch-22 situation, where there was no time to follow through with the business plan outside class if you are working another job.” The participants agreed that the time requirements for the course and the outside assignments were rigorous and intense but no one had any real suggestions for improving the schedule. Stretching the course to a full semester could potentially cause conflicts with the farming season and was not regarded as a good option. One participant noted, “If you stretch it out too far, you lose it.”

The Need for Previous Preparation Regarding Enterprises
The second most commonly voiced issue with the course was the need to choose a specific enterprise to work on prior to the course starting. Even those participants who already had existing enterprises felt they “started in the middle.” Although the course has a section in the beginning for discussing new enterprises, participants still wanted additional preparation before jumping into a business planning process.

One participant, whose business plan involved expanding into additional livestock products to add to his existing farmers’ market sales, noted “you are creating your business as you go along -- the course could be overwhelming for someone just getting started.” He noted further that he, as a more experienced entrepreneur, could pick up and apply some of the concepts and ideas right away because he had already made some mistakes. He suggested taking part of the class time and dividing the class into smaller groups -- one group who already had an enterprise and another of those looking into different enterprises but who had less experience. He believed this might optimize the time spent networking by addressing specific solutions to issues being faced by both groups. He also noted that having the whole class together talking about problems and solutions was a highly useful aspect of the class.

Suggested Course Changes
One participant suggested building additional working time into the in-class schedule for working on the business plans but acknowledged that this might mean reducing time allocated to class discussions, which were useful. He also noted that he didn’t want any topics removed from the course, that all the information was useful. He suggested that dividing the course into several segments to be completed over a longer period of time, like 18 months, might be one solution to the time crunch.

Another participant suggested additional prep time could be spent ahead of the course itself, maybe spending several seminars getting ready with an enterprise concept before the NXLeveL course itself started. He also suggested more time for one-on-one development would have helped him, but didn’t know where the time could be found to accomplish this.

Another participant suggested spending more time on computer and Internet skills, especially with search engines to do background research. He suggested that having a classroom with a computer and Internet access for all the class times would have helped him because he had so little time at home for these activities.

No one wanted to leave out any of the topics. Everyone thought the material was well-presented and highly useful. Many of the participants indicated that they would like to take the course over again, if they had the time.

Instructor’s Observations
As the trainer with this pilot course, I felt something was missing at the beginning, although everyone was prepared to work. I think that participants would benefit from at least one day-long seminar on goal-setting and quality of life issues and another on how to choose potential enterprises before starting NXLeveL. This would help people hit the ground running and not get bogged down with trying to evaluate different enterprises while they are supposed to be learning how to write a detailed business plan.

I also believe that small-scale farmers as a training audience have special time requirements that are difficult to get around. Most of the Illinois audience has to work around the growing season. Perhaps holding the preliminary all-day sessions in August, starting a six-week session in late October and another in January through March, with a follow-up session the following August might assist with the severe time crunch. It would be worth trying in another pilot setting. I would also couple the training with mentoring between experienced entrepreneurs and “newbies” or “wanna-bes.” Both groups would benefit from the networking and problem-solving opportunities.