Communities of Practice and Farmer Led Training for Increased Sustainability of Refugee & Immigrant Farms in the North Central Region

Activities are to build local and regional networks for refugee & immigrant farmers that come through Lutheran Services of Iowa Refugee & Immigrant Services' Global Greens program. This happens through peer mentoring, a regional community of practice and training on sustainable agriculture with development of virtual training co-led by graduate farmers. The beneficiaries are refugees and immigrants from multiple countries. The program will enhance education and service delivery to similar programs participants.

Here is a report of our results against project objectives, outcomes and activities in the first year:

Objective 1.  Farmer led training on sustainability to improve land for on-going profitability with the goal of 30 farmers using practices that increase production and demonstrate increased knowledge of sustainability practices for greater production.

Activities and Results in this Period:

03.2024 Update:  LSI's cover crop demonstration and education began in March and ended in October 2023 for this season.  LSI purchased cover crop seed from local producer, Iowa Cover Crop.  The first demonstration with started in March and terminated in June, and a second started in July and ended in October.  Farmers were provided cover crop orientation early in the season and given cover crops seeds for the spring planting that included oats and peas followed by crops like winter squash, mid-season planting of buckwheat and clover following a short spring crop and then followed by a late season planting of lettuce, radish, etc.; and a rye/vetch mix planted in the fall that comes back the next year which we can strip till or follow with transplants of tomatoes or eggplants.  These three strategies offered simple cover crops solutions to farmers with results that were practically observable and will be continued when they move to larger lands. When we initially started the project, we felt that the small-scale farmers on the incubator farm would be less likely to adopt the practices than graduates farming on a larger scale, as it would be harder to see the benefits and adopt them. However, farmers at the incubator observed a dramatic increase in production and less loss of soil from runoff in the rainy periods due to use of these practices in the last two seasons.  Now all farmers that have observed the results the last two seasons are requesting cover crop seeds and continue to implement these practices.   Graduate farmers were primarily very busy preparing their land as many had recently graduated due to identification of viable land sites outside of Global Greens.  However, cover crop starter kits were offered to graduate farmers and 2 farming families (4 farmers) decided to implement in this season.  The cover crop kits included 40 pounds of seed and a trash bin, as well as being lent a spreader and given the Johnny's seed cover crop comparison chart and provision of an orientation on the chart.  The four farmers that implemented plan to continue and we expect more graduates to independently adopt this in the next season.  The main areas that farmers expressed that they observed and were very happy with related to cover crops was the significant yield increase even on the small land size and that the soil and plant quality was much better.  Specifically, they had less soil runoff.   They also noticed that the cover crops kept the weeds down and required less labor when preparing their land. Farmers that observed these changes and heard about it from their neighbors at the training farm all have started or plan to start the same.   LSI also implemented a cover crop demonstration on the farm which started with tarping an empty tract of land to remove the thistle, which is a very big issue at the training farm.  At the end of the summer, when LSI staff, volunteers and farmers removed the tarp together, all were very interested in how the heat under the tarp had destroyed all the thistle naturally.  This plot is now planted with cover crops before a new farm or farmers or provided with this land to farm.  LSI also conducted one demonstration with cover crops in a community garden space that was not being used.  Buckwheat was planted in this plot and gardeners who are aspiring farmers, also observed how it kept weeds down and the land and soil healthy.  A new gardening family will also benefit from the soil health of this plot when it is used for production again.  Farmers realize through observation and using cover crops that they also do more for their land than fertilizers.  There is now demand among all farmers for cover crops, where there was no interest before.  New farmers to the training farm may still need to be convinced and on-going practical demonstrations will be very useful. Some on-going questions is how to help farmers continue to budget to buy their own cover crop seed in the coming years.   Besides the 28 farmers that have learned about and realized the benefits of utilizing cover crops, 32 farm families have been trained on cover crops and 161 underserved farmers from the LSI Global Greens program and other programs came on a farm visit or received knowledge/education on cover crops. 

03.2023 Report Updates:  The first year of the project LSI realized some challenges in setting out one or more formal demonstration at a graduate farmer’s location through stipends as intended due to issues with land access for several of our graduate farmers.  Development pressures forced several of the most advanced farmers off of their rented land and two families were at the point of having to close their farm businesses.  We utilized an open area that had been planned for cover crop demonstrations at the Pleasant Hill location that LSI secured a long-term lease for on behalf of several farmers, to add additional farmers instead so they could continue farming while other land solutions were found.  In addition, fortunately, LSI was able to forge a connection with In Harmony Farm, a new non-profit farm offering leases and other support for socially disadvantaged farmers growing on larger plots of 1-5 acres.  Several Global Greens (GG) graduate farmers that lost their land at other sites, and several other farmers from LSI’s incubator farm that were ready to graduate, started at the In Harmony location in 2022.  Since it was the first year the farm was being used for vegetable cultivation purposes, it took more time than anticipated for the land and infrastructure to be prepared and LSI GG graduate farmers that joined In Harmony Farm had a short season and spent most of their time preparing the land.  LSI did provide the cover crop materials to the Farm Manager at In Harmony and graduate farmers to implement, with instructions, but because of the challenges of the first year at the site and getting it ready for farming well into the season, there was not enough time for implementation the demonstration on graduate farms the first year.  LSI staff and lead farmers also spent a lot of time helping In Harmony, which has leased 25 acres to 5 GGs graduate farmers to date in Earlham, Iowa start up their program.  LSI joined in partnership within Harmony on a Beginning Farmers and Ranchers Grant in the fall to help them with the cost of hiring a Farm Manager, who LSI has worked closely with.  We gave the farm manager 15 bags of cover crops for fallow fields with instructions to give to graduates to install in their fields as a practical demonstration on weed management.  Since there was not sufficient time to implement this in their startup year at the farm, it will be implemented in the coming year instead with cross visits with farmers at the incubator farm.

Since implementing the cover crop activities was challenging for graduate farmers this year, we focused instead of assisting training farmers with learning about cover crops in a practical way on other land.  In 2022 we were provided with 5 acres of land in Johnston, Iowa that we supported 6 other farmers to use.  The land had previously been managed by an experienced Certified Organic Farmer.  The farmers noted that the land had the best soil they had ever experienced and wanted to learn more about how this was accomplished.  The Land and Production Supervisor contacted the previous tenant to learn about how the land was managed and then shared the soil practices and knowledge with the farmers at regular field check-ins, end of season evaluations and farm management meetings.  We will incorporate those practices and use the soil that farmers had experience with into the 2023 class for farmers on Soil Health and Cover Crops and draw on their knowledge and experiences at the site during those classes and to share with other farmers.  We helped one advanced farmer who was at Johnston site to make a cover crop and water management plan, get supplies, and install oats and peas in the early spring with great results which were shared with several farmers.  This was not one of the farmers we had identified to be a “teacher-farmer” aka peer-to-peer mentor though she certainly is able to see and explain the benefits of soil health to a group. She described how she had the best year ever for pumpkins because of the spring cover crop she planted.  Most of the farmers that planed at the Johnston site will only farm it this year because the land was temporary, but it was a good experience in taking care of soil that has had a large and observable impact on their production and increased their own knowledge and that of the other incubator farmers that did not join at the Johnston site. In addition, we provided cover crop seed we purchased through the project to farmers at the incubator site to experiment with, learn from and share with one another this year.  This went well with the educational content was provided to go with it.

As mentioned above, because of these significant shifts in land and graduate and advanced farmers having more responsibility for new land all in the same year, it led to a gap in formality of how we rolled out the cover crop plans and stipends to farmers and difficulty in having one or several large graduate cover crop demonstrations, as planned.  Instead, we worked with farmers as a small group on the Johnston land to conduct cover crop demonstrations working primarily with advanced rather than graduate farmers as mentioned above.  All farmers at the incubator farm, regardless of level, benefitted from this practical knowledge.

Global Greens hosted a Field Day at Global Greens Farm on September 25, 2022, in partnership with Practical Farmers of Iowa and the USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS). The field day was focused on cover crops and growing culturally relevant crops. Two farm businesses that participated in the incubator program gave tours of their farms and shared their experiences of learning about cover crops that work well in Iowa. Jennie Erwin, the Farm Management Specialist at Global Greens, also shared about how cover crops are integrated into the land management plan at the Global Greens incubator farm. The Natural Resource Conservation Service brought their soil health truck and gave all attendees a soil demonstration. 108 people attended the event. Attendees included beginning farmers, aspiring farmers and the general public. We also hosted several other tours to mixed groups of farmers and agricultural professionals on the farm who were interested in a wide range of topics.  GG farmers taught peers about drip tape, mulch, and cover crops.  GG staff taught agricultural/program professionals about running an incubator farm. 

Objective 2. Regional community of practice (COP) that connects R&I farms and farmers including a COP with 5 R&I farms established that increases resources and peer networks among farmers.  As a result, resources are shared to strengthen programs that serve R&Is and improve farmer connectivity.

Activities and Results in this Period:

03.2024 Updates:  Three regional incubator farm programs including LSI, continue to be actively engaged in the COP. One is Kansas City (KC) New Roots for Refugees (New Roots), a program of Catholic Charites of Northwest Kansas, and Community Crops, a program of Family Services of Lincoln Nebraska. Besides the three that continue to collaborate through the COP, many other regional programs frequently contact the LSI Global Greens program for support and advice as the region's longest-standing programs. In Waterloo, Iowa, there is an organization that is working to also start an incubator like Global Greens to serve the immigrant and refugee community, and LSI has spent considerable time with this group, including numerous cross-visits to support this initiative. This is a group who visited us with underserved Congolese farmers and stakeholders from public health, and universities in 2022. They started a community garden in 2023 with our consulting and resource assistance. We have also met many times with the Iowa Food System Coalition and lead their Land and Resource Access Priority area. 

We had an opportunity for a meet up at the Emerging Farmer conference this November and at the NIFTI conference in October. KC New Roots and Global Greens continue to work on other projects with easily identified outcomes, namely that we created pieces of education content together that are plain language and visually based, and share those, helping with feedback and finalization of these resources to share with other incubator farm programs and refugee farmers across the region as well as nationally. 

In addition, at the National Incubator Training Farm Initiative (NIFTI) conference, we reestablished contact with Big River Farm in MN who could no longer stay in the COP due to capacity issues and sought a connection with the Windy City Harvest- Chicago Botanical Garden Incubator as a potential new member.  Through the work of the COP current and former members, we identified a big interest in the work of land based educational farms, plain language resources, and farm tours among new initiatives. There is continued need for time to support recent programs and beginning regional farmers both virtually and in person on a 1-1 basis, hosting in person field days, and teaching established classes on a range of topics. This is what is most valuable to beginning farmers and farm programs who are not established yet, who do not have time to make their own resources, and who may not have the expertise to teach (think of a farm manager who can till and do field work and can start a community garden but who lacks soft skills to teach a group of people).  Our field days have high attendance from newer refugee and immigrant farm initiatives from around the State and their participants and there is a lot of growing interest in our type of farm, the type of agriculture we are sharing with people, and the changes we are seeing in attitude in Iowans who have been in the “get big or get out” mindset.  Iowa is in the top 5 lowest vegetable consumption in the nation. Conversely, Immigrants and Refugees are the main specialty crop farmers in the Central region and are also the main vegetable consumers, especially when these groups can obtain culturally appropriate varieties of vegetables locally.   More than 6 farmers attended the Emerging Farmer Conference in Minnesota in November 2022 along with 2 LSI staff and 2 staff from our partner organization Iowa Valley Resource Conservation and Development.  LSI displaced some of the plain language and picture-based materials created in collaboration with the COP at the event which was very popular with the other participants and unique.  LSI also brought staff member Firmin who speaks 6 languages and most of the languages of the farmers and was able to translate and assist farm participants for the duration of the conference. 

03.2023 Updates: LSI set a group charter with the members and ensured their agreement in the COP as formal members.  The members of the regional COP are:  Big River Farms in Minnesota, Community Crops in Lincoln Nebraska, New Roots for Refugees in Kansas City and Matthew 25 in Cedar Rapids.  LSI is working on enlisting a 5^th member and will have this organization added in the next period.  A Basecamp software platform was set up to be shared by the COP members which is used for project management and to share materials and documents between the refugee and immigrant servicing farm incubator programs in the region.  The farm organizations are setting up protocols for sharing of project best practices and learning materials and labeling which can be shared externally, and which are only for internal use.  The group met four times in the first year.  The first meetings were discussions regarding if the group should be expanded to additional members, how often this larger group should meet, such as quarterly for this core group and then have larger meetings for any group that my benefit at least once per year to share resources.  Early on an online survey was sent out to determine the topics of priority for focus for the first year.  LSI had in person cross visits from 7 programs in the region during the year including members of the COP and from Omaha Nebraska and Waterloo, Iowa to provide a tour and share best practices as well as meet and talk to farmers.  These groups brought farmers with them to learn and interact with other farmers.  Altogether 30 historically disadvantaged farmers visited the Global Greens farm from other incubator training programs in the year.  Visits from other COP core member organizations will be discussed and arranged in the next COP meeting in March of 2023.   LSI planned for attending the Emerging Farmers Conference with COP members in the next period during this time as well.

Objective 3. Peer mentorship to accelerate sustainability so that 30 farmers utilize learning from peers resulting in greater achievement of farm goals and increase knowledge of practices listed in their goals.

Activities and Results in this Period:

03.2024 Results:  The plan for this program was to have incubator farmers learn from graduate farmers with a goal of conducting two consulting visits per year with 30 farmers (about 15 farming families).  6 farming families, consisting of 2 adult farmers per family (12 farmers) at Global Greens lead the demonstrations on cover crops in 2023 and 2 off-site graduate farming families, consisting of 2 adult farmers per family (4), received seed and were helped to plant seed to grow and promote practices to date.  These farmers frequently interacted and shared the practices in the field with their neighbors at the incubator farm or at their graduate sites, such as In Harmony.  The practical viewing and observation of the results have been the most powerful part of the mentorship and has resulted in all current farmers at the training farm desiring to continue these practices. 

We identified 5 of the advanced farmers as “Cover Crop Ambassadors” at Global Greens Incubator Farm that we spend more time meeting 1-1 than other farmers. After an initial cover crop and soil health class in March, these farm leaders have been instrumental in identifying and implementing best practices that work for small scale farmers which other farmers at the farm can observe, learn from and replicate, including cover crops, as mentioned above.  These farmers were available to teach at field days and are all continuing implementing cover crops at Global Greens farm on ¼ acre plots.  

03.2023 Results:  LSI supported the Burundians Iowans Association (BIA) whose members include the 5 GG graduate farmers that moved to In Harmony to obtain a grant for a tractor they will purchase to manage their land for the 2023 season. The purpose of the tractor is for their own use as well as to share with other farmers and teach and mentor on its use as a community project.   BIA supported 10 individuals to learn more about farming in this period, including make supply orders, and others with equipment they have.  These supplies and equipment include items needed for cover crop demonstrations and implementation.