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:

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 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 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.