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

Progress report for LNC21-449

Project Type: Research and Education
Funds awarded in 2021: $250,000.00
Projected End Date: 10/31/2024
Grant Recipient: Lutheran Services in Iowa
Region: North Central
State: Iowa
Project Coordinator:
Nicholas Wuertz
Lutheran Services in Iowa
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Project Information

Summary:

Climate variability and land access issues make adoption of sustainable agriculture practices and multi- stakeholder collaboration increasingly important. This is especially true for refugee and immigrant (R&I) farmers who face barriers related to language and supportive networks. Gaining access to culturally relevant virtual training when in person meetings are not possible is also a challenge.

LSI has successfully graduated seven farmers from its incubator program and has a new cohort of farmers ready to move onto their own land. It has established relationships with other regional farms for R&Is that can serve as a forum for sharing culturally relevant training material, establishing peer farmer mentorship and addressing common issues among farms serving R&Is.

With a proven path to success for farmers in its program, Global Greens (GG) would now like to implement the “Communities of Practice and Farmer Led Training for Increased Sustainability of Refugee & Immigrant Farms in the North Central Region” program with the following objectives:

1) Offer continued learning opportunities for R&I farmers on sustainable practices, both virtually and in person, to increase long-term soil health and profitability.

2) Establish a Community of Practice among regional initiatives working with R&Is to enhance shared goals, find solutions to pressing issues and provide cross learning opportunities among regional farmers.

3) Incorporate mentorship between graduate and beginning farmers to improve adoption of sustainable practices that will prepare them for successful management of their own farm.

The approach will include:

  • Partnership with Iowa State University Extension and other research institutions to identify existing research on crop cover and simple water conservation techniques that can be replicated in-field and set up demonstrations on the training farm and graduate farmer plots for experiential learning. Quarterly in-field workshops and monthly visits will then take place to observe, record and discuss results. The workshops will be video recorded for post project sharing with wider networks and visual handouts will be created.  A field day event will be held to showcase the end of project results.
  • Increased availability of appropriate education materials and information sharing through a formal regional community of practice that meets quarterly.
  • Encourage mentorship between graduate and beginning farmers through resources and tools.

The project will not only enhance opportunities for LSI’s GG program and the next cohort of farmers, but also allow for learning between the GG program, other regional programs, and participants in those programs to build environmental and economic sustainability.

Project Objectives:

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.

Issues:  LSI had planned to provide stipends to graduate farmers to demonstrate the benefits of using cover crops to incubator/training farmers on larger land.  However, as indicated, in the introduction section of the report below, most graduate farmers had to find new land last year due to loosing leased land to development.  

How they were addressed or solved:  Luckily, LSI was able to assist graduate farmers with a solution through a partnership with a new non-profit called In Harmony Farm with the aim of providing larger land on longer leases to socially disadvantaged farmers.  It also identified a demonstration site for incubator farmers on land in Johnston, Iowa that had formerly been an organic farm.  For this reason project activities were modified the first year to involve training farmers in the demonstrations with graduate farmers as mentors and co trainers as much as possible.  In the coming year LSI plans to implement with graduate farmers as originally planed.

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.

Issue:  The COP has come together and all participating farms have found it beneficial, though a few issues that continue are deciding on the best platform to share resources and also identifying one more member, as one of the original training farms was not able to join.  There is a lot of interest among other regional training farms serving R&Is.

Solution:  The COP members continue to identify a platform that works well for this purpose, and plans to finalize soon.  Though one member did not have the time to join, we have identified a number of others that would like to participate either formally or informally.  LSI and COP partners are planning to have a core group meet more regularly and a larger group it shares resources with and invites to farm field days and events at least annually.

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.

Issue:  Graduate farmers were very busy in the last year relocated their farmers and re-starting them on a new site, most of the mentorship in the last year had to do with logistics of helping each other set up farms and obtain supplies needed.

Solution:  Though mentorship was not able to be a structured as planned, the end result of graduate farmers setting up on new land and helping other farmers that had graduated from the training farm and were in their first year was that all successfully transitioned their farmers and had a good market season.  The leap of going from 1/2 acres to 1 and most cases 2-3 acres, was not an easy one for the newly graduated farmers.  The farm organization BIA has secured a tractor so that it can help other farmers on the new land and new graduates in the future. In the next year we expect to see more formal support to newer incubator farmers to from graduates as well.

Introduction:

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:

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 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, their 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 with In 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 start up 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:

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 5th 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 attending 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:

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.

Cooperators

Click linked name(s) to expand/collapse or show everyone's info
  • Stefan Gailans - Technical Advisor
  • Dr. Ajay Nair - Technical Advisor

Research

Involves research:
No
Participation Summary

Education

Educational approach:

Except from the GG Dirt Newsletter oct 27 2022

Organic Veggies 101

Cover crops on small plot handout

Organic Refresher during orientation (30 minutes)

*General Philosophy 
             
-health
              -customer demand
              -higher price
              -farmer experience matches this

*Major Practices
              -Soil Fertility and Nutrient Management- weed control
              -Soil and Water Conservation
              -Crop Rotation and Cover Crops- soil building, nutrient catching, erosion preventing, weed suppressing
              -Pest control using systems over products- maintain beneficials use row cover vs. sprays
              -Maintain wildlife habitat and biodiversity- snakes, birds, beneficial insects
              -No prohibited synthetic products- talk about seeds
              -Detailed Record Keeping

*Other
              -Emphasize systems over products- show OMRI label and USDA Organic label many times.
              -Seeds- must use organic variety if available.  Conventional ok if you have tried hard to find it at several other places.  NO GMOs
              -Buffers
              -We are only CNG, not Certified Organic.  We are not allowed to advertise as “Organic”

Handouts?

*Short Quiz to test knowledge

  1. Difference between conventional and organic farming
  2. 3 Examples of Organic farming
  3. 3 benefits of cover crops
  4. Name 1 cover crop that adds nitrogen
  5. Name 3 pest management practices
  6. Name 2 ways to increase pollinators in your garden area
  7. Name 3 ways to organically manage weeds
  8. One organic practice you will use this year

Project Activities

Cover Crop Demonstrations_Experiments
Organics and Cover Crops

Educational & Outreach Activities

14 Consultations
3 Curricula, factsheets or educational tools
6 On-farm demonstrations
3 Online trainings
1 Published press articles, newsletters
4 Tours
4 Webinars / talks / presentations
4 Workshop field days
2 Other educational activities: End of season evaluations and cross visits

Participation Summary:

83 Farmers participated
21 Ag professionals participated
Education/outreach description:

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 participate 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 ag/program professionals about running an incubator farm. 

Objective 2: Regional community of practice (COP) that connects R&I farms and farmers. 

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 5th member and will have this organization added in the next period.  An 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 on 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 attending 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. 

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.

Education and Outreach Activities

Consultation activities listed were generally to order, distribute and install supplies, education materials consisted of one handout, one class and one video on conservation topics.  The on-farm demonstrations occurred with 5 farmers and 2 farm managers.  The published article was a newsletter on the importance of cover crops on October 27, 2022.  The two education activities included an organic 101 class that focused on water conservation and soil health, the other was with the NRCS soil truck which came to the LSI GG hosted PFI field day to show no till and a cover crop demonstration.

We hosted several tours from new programs or aspiring programs.  These included farmer to farmer introductions and a focus on cover crops and drip tape as well as advice and best practices conversations on an agricultural professional/program level.  The PFI field day was extremely successful being able to bring 108 attendees from a diverse range of groups and knowledge levels to hear about using cover crops and cultural vegetables.  The NRCS presented to all 108 attendees with their soil truck comparing soil from tilled, no tilled, and cover cropped soil. 

Activities include consulting with farmers to locate and source drip tape materials, straw mulch, appropriate cover crop seed needed for their farms and season plans, assisting farmers to install these, and working alongside them to know how to use the earthway broadcast seeder or other scale-appropriate cover crop installation methods, accessing equipment for install and termination. 

Other activities include ones done informally by farmers who installed cover crops but were not formally set up as “farmer mentors.”  The farmers who were given free cover crops, consultation when to plant these, and help to install the cover crops at the incubator.  At time they needed no help with a good plan and were the best at explaining informally to other farmers “the soil I have here for my pumpkins is the best I’ve had it where I had an oat and peas cover crop.”  We attempt to capture this knowledge transfer in mid-season and end of season meetings but it is very challenging to find a way to quantify # of farmers who shared info, # of farmers who benefitted, # of farmers who changed a practice.  Regardless we see this organic sharing of knowledge as one of the greatest benefits to farmers of different levels farming at the incubator site.

In person and hybrid classes given directly to farmers are as follows:

12/4/21:  Farm management recap and planning for next year (Hybrid)
1/29/22:  Organic 101 (in-person)
2/5/22:    NRCS and Iowa Food System Coalition (hybrid)
3/28/22:   Cover Crops (hybrid)
4/2/22:      Farm Orientation
7/2/22:      Organic Class on the Go
9/25/22:     Cultural Veggies and Cover Crops Field Day

Learning Outcomes

55 Farmers reported changes in knowledge, attitudes, skills and/or awareness as a result of their participation
Key areas taught:
  • Organics Basics
  • Cover Crop Benefits
  • Water Conservation/Management

Project Outcomes

7 Farmers changed or adopted a practice
Key practices changed:
  • Use of Cover Crops

  • Improved water conservation practices

1 Grant applied for that built upon this project
1 Grant received that built upon this project
9 New working collaborations
Success stories:

We worked with Big Muddy, CFRA, 2 ECBOs from Nebraska, 3 Waterloo groups collaborating to start a new incubator, Iowa City Compassion, In Harmony Farm, etc.) they will all be invited to the 2023 COP meetings.

See notes above under Objective 1 about woman farmer and her success with her cover crop experiment that resulted in an excellent pumpkin harvest that she shared with other Global Greens farmers on the extra land in Johnston that we were able to use this year.

Recommendations:

This work is sustainable as it teaches practical skills related to soil and water conservation and real life results that benefit farmers that they will carry with them into the future.  Because the work is built into a farmer mentor model, mentors build or enhance skills that allow them to continue to support newer farmers into the future.  We anticipate continuing relationships with entities such as USDA NRCS and other partners to continue educations and visits that are free of charge to farmers at to LSI.  Global Greens field days and the first Field Day with PFI will continue in the future and always have great participation from farmers, community members and supporters.  Collaborations such with ISU and PFI have been strengthened for future engagements as well as with the Rodale Institute.   The ability of BIA to obtain a tractor and other assets will help the communities of socially disadvantaged farmers they support well into the future.

Information Products

Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the U.S. Department of Agriculture or SARE.