Progress report for LNE23-461
Project Information
The Problem: Urban farmers don’t grow up on a farm nor have formal agriculture schooling. Most decide to farm later in life and have limited resources. In order to farm, they must acquire knowledge, skills, thought processes and sensibilities not ordinarily cultivated in cities. Many graduates of the 55 NE BFRDP for urban farmers have difficulty transitioning to full-time, income-generating farm work, despite the significant increases in learning they acquire through such programs. This isn’t simply due to lack of land, tools and resources required, but even more significantly, because they do not yet “think like farmers” and haven’t mastered the strategic-planning and decision-making competencies needed to confidently begin farming for income. This is especially true for our majority historically-underserved, under-resourced farmers who have little margin for error or lack safety nets.
The Solution and Approach: A proposed second training year of paid targeted farmer to farmer learning for our graduates is a sounder investment. To learn to think like a farmer, the next developmental step for ECO’s majority historically underserved BFRDP graduates is 35-week-long paid, apprenticeships. Through on-farm experiential learning, strategic planning and related training, they will acquire critical skills and confidence while being paid to apprentice on 5 acres of ECO’s urban farming educational space. This will result in the increased strategic planning and thinking skills required for successful production farming, as well as an enhanced sense of community with fellow farmers on whom they can rely. By offering this next-level paid apprentice opportunity to BFRDP graduates before they embark upon running their own farming enterprise at our incubator farm or elsewhere, we anticipate greater employability of our apprenticeship graduates, increased rates of urban farm success, and better survival rates for NE urban farms and farmers. Our outcome is 15-18 confident, motivated and well-trained farmers able to produce food for insecure residents of the DC-Metro area.
Simultaneously, ECO will address NE SARE’s Outcome Statement in a research project, asking: Is this a realistic outcome for an urban farm in the Northeast? What are the realities and constraints of urban farming, particularly as it relates to profitability, high quality of life for farmers, and sustainability? This is important to those who promote urban farming to correct many of the ills of the current industrial, historically-exclusionary food production and distribution system. Learning from the experience of established farmers, we ask what policies, supports, and subsidies of urban farming enterprises have proven helpful or are currently lacking? The findings could help focus new and ongoing research priorities, and guide future investments and subsidies in urban agriculture.
15 historically underserved farmers access a paid apprenticeship on 5 acres for 35 weeks. They will report increased knowledge, skills, and confidence in urban production farming
The Problem: Urban farmers don’t grow up on a farm nor have formal agriculture schooling. Most decide to farm later in life and have limited resources. In order to farm, they must acquire knowledge, skills, thought processes and sensibilities not ordinarily cultivated in cities. Many graduates of the 55 NE BFRDP for urban farmers have difficulty transitioning to full-time, income-generating farm work, despite the significant increases in learning they acquire through such programs. This isn’t simply due to lack of land, tools and resources required, but even more significantly, because they do not yet “think like farmers” and haven’t mastered the strategic-planning and decision-making competencies needed to confidently begin farming for income. This is especially true for our majority historically-underserved, under-resourced farmers who have little margin for error or lack safety nets.
The Solution and Approach: A proposed second training year of paid targeted farmer to farmer learning for our graduates is a sounder investment. To learn to think like a farmer, the next developmental step for ECO’s majority historically underserved BFRDP graduates is 35-week-long paid, apprenticeships. Through on-farm experiential learning, strategic planning and related training, they will acquire critical skills and confidence while being paid to apprentice on 5 acres of ECO’s urban farming educational space. This will result in the increased strategic planning and thinking skills required for successful production farming, as well as an enhanced sense of community with fellow farmers on whom they can rely. By offering this next-level paid apprentice opportunity to BFRDP graduates before they embark upon running their own farming enterprise at our incubator farm or elsewhere, we anticipate greater employability of our apprenticeship graduates, increased rates of urban farm success, and better survival rates for NE urban farms and farmers. Our outcome is 10 confident, motivated and well-trained farmers able to produce food for insecure residents of the DC-Metro area.
Simultaneously, ECO will address NE SARE’s Outcome Statement in a research project, asking: Is this a realistic outcome for an urban farm in the Northeast? What are the realities and constraints of urban farming, particularly as it relates to profitability, high quality of life for farmers, and sustainability? This is important to those who promote urban farming to correct many of the ills of the current industrial, historically-exclusionary food production and distribution system. Learning from the experience of established farmers, we ask what policies, supports, and subsidies of urban farming enterprises have proven helpful or are currently lacking? The findings could help focus new and ongoing research priorities, and guide future investments and subsidies in urban agriculture.
Research
Given studies that show persistent dependence on off-farm income, we ask: What are the realities and constraints of urban farming, especially as it relates to farmers’ quality of life, profitability, and sustainability? Many who contemplate farming are already engaged in more lucrative careers. They anticipate earning a livable wage through urban farming to support their families and need to understand the farming realities in the Mid-Atlantic/Northeast region. Learning from the experience of established farmers, they will ask what policies, supports, and subsidies of urban farming enterprises have proven helpful or are currently lacking?
Progress Report February 2023 - January 2024
- Created a collaborative research team with University of Maryland.
- All agreements for this collaboration are now in place to officially begin this research.
- Members of the research team
- Dr. Stephen Thomas, Center for Health Equity, UMD and founder of MD-CRAB, Co-PI of Research Component of project
- Meg Jordan, Center for Health Equity, UMD
- Jocelyn Tidwell, UMD Extension faculty and ECO City Farms, PI of Research Component of project
- Margaret Morgan-Hubbard, ECO City Farms and CRAB Member, PI of overall SARE grant
- Approval of the research component of the project by UMD IRB review committee was received Oct 30, 2023. The project qualified for expedited review and was determined to be a minimal risk project. All research team members completed CITI Human Subject Research and Responsible Conduct of Research training.
- Studied research models and software (Qualtrics, Box)
- Data instruments are in draft form and will be used during the pilot testing phase
- Next quarter, present to Community Research Advisory Board (MD-CRAB) for feedback and start approaching farmers and learning circles for advice and feedback to adapt for farmer audience.
- NOTE: MD-CRAB is made up of diverse members of the community and serves as a “think tank” to ensure that the results of research are informed by and benefit vulnerable populations. It provides a forum for researchers to present their ideas so that MD-CRAB members may offer substantive feedback and recommendations to research teams, provide opportunities for them to learn about community and cultural norms, and enable community members, particularly from the African and Latinx diaspora, to shape the development and implementation of research projects.
Population and sampling strategy
A non-probability sampling strategy is appropriate since the intention is to understand the profitability strategies urban farmers use as well as their income challenges and proposed solutions to barriers they face. In 2023, we will use purposive and snowball sampling strategies to identify and select from the population of farmers which meet the following criteria: 1) farm within the Northeast SARE region, 2) grow on 10 acres or less, 3) located in urban or peri-urban areas, 4) able to share detailed production and financial data, 5) farming full-time for at least 5 seasons, and 6) share similarities with farmers who participate in our programs, either in terms of production plans and/or demographic characteristics. These criteria will be applied to farmers found through state registries, our extensive contacts, and relevant farmer networks.
Each year 5-8 farmers will be interviewed, for a total of 10-16 farmers over the grant period. This sample size will provide rich data and support thematic analysis, and is feasible given the size of our cohorts and the estimated population meeting our criteria.
Methodology: Research and design strategy
This is mixed methods research using a convergent parallel design. While quantitative data will be requested from participants, primarily qualitative data will support key findings since understanding a farmer-centric perspective on challenges and solutions is our primary goal. Rather than generating generalizable findings, we focus on articulating farmer’s challenges, goals, and beliefs as well as their proven and proposed solutions in the context of the reality of profitability and income derived from farm-based sources. To form a systemic understanding of the urban farmers’ context, we will review relevant research, policies, programs, and community factors that exist alongside and have the potential to impact their farming operations. Initial design has been guided by farmer feedback, recent reports, a national urban agriculture census, and a needs assessment.
Instruments will address the following questions: How do farmers define a “high quality of life” for themselves and what facilitates or hinders achieving that goal? What are the farmer’s goals for both farm-based and off-farm income, and why? How can farmer beliefs and experiences help explain income patterns? What are the farmers’ perceptions of the relationship between farms and their local communities and agencies? Instruments will be pilot tested to assess objectivity, bias, and interviewer influence and revised accordingly. We will elaborate protocols for securely obtaining, storing, and reviewing data.
We will inform participants how we will use their data and obtain written informed consent. A gift card incentive will be offered to participants, acknowledging the value of the farmers’ time but not unduly influencing responses. Eligibility for the incentive will not be contingent on the content or substance of the farmers’ responses.
Data Collection and Analysis
Key data will be derived primarily from qualitative data, contextualized and supported by farmer-reported quantitative data. The data will be obtained through three instruments. In consideration for potential logistical and/or cultural considerations, several options (online, printed, telephone, and in-person interviews) will be offered for completing each of the instruments according to farmer preference and feasibility. Budget allows for Researcher and/or Apprentices to travel to nearby farmers to conduct interviews:
- (Quantitative) A survey of demographic data will provide details of the farmers’ geographic location, acreage in production, crops and products produced, personal characteristics, years of experience, etc.
- (Quantitative) A standardized set of production and sales records as well as income data which specifies sources/proportion of income from farm-based and off-farm sources, including any financial or in-kind support received. This data will be self-reported and no documentation or financial records will be required. The data set will be formulated to lower how intrusive the data collection process is for the farmers and assure that financial data is handled with the appropriate level of sensitivity and safeguards.
- (Qualitative) With guidance from staff, each apprentice will have the option to co-facilitate an interview. In the interview, farmers will contextualize the quantitative data, giving a narrative of their past and current challenges and successes in making urban farming sustainable. They will describe any ways their local communities benefit from and contribute to their farming ventures and address any local, state, or national policy or program implementation issues they have experienced, especially as it relates to profitability, quality of life and the long-term sustainability of their farms. They will give insight into their goals, beliefs, and needs as well as offer their feedback on what supports and subsidies of urban farming enterprises have proven helpful or are currently lacking.
For analysis, data will be de-identified and coded to remove individual and business names from data sets reviewed by the apprentice cohorts as a group and published. Only the principal research team will have access to the raw data sets.
We will use thematic analysis of qualitative data and measures of central tendency and variability for quantitative data as well as a review of policies, programs, and community factors that provide context for the farmers’ responses. Analysis will happen in two stages chronologically:
- In 2024, 5-8 farmers will be interviewed. Staff will identify themes and trends among the compiled and de-identified data sets. As an optional component, apprentices as a group may review, discuss, and refine these preliminary findings and help produce an interim report.
- In 2025, another 5-8 farmers will be selected to participate. As a group, apprentices may have the option to follow the same process as the first cohort, using data from both years to help produce a final report on the responses of all 10-16 farmer participants.
A final report and infographic will be published on our website and disseminated among food advocacy groups, farm professionals, and policy-makers. We will present findings to networks of urban farmers, such as the New Entry Sustainable Farming Project and Farm Answers. Within our organization, the results will be shared with program participants and inform strategic planning and advocacy efforts.
Farmer Input
Farmers are central to this research design as it relies on their participation, and prioritizes a systematic understanding of their financial challenges and self-identified solutions.
Farmers at our Urban Farm Incubator were surveyed in 2022 about the level of significance to their own farm plans of having more information on urban farmers’ income level and sources, both farm-based and off-farm. All responded it was “very significant” to understand urban farmers’ sources of income. One farmer further clarified that having data, spanning the COVID pandemic, is critical to inform her how to adapt to pandemic-influenced changes in markets and revenue streams. These concerns match feedback from our own staff, urban agriculture colleagues, participants in local farmer network events and from participants in our own and other local BFRDP programs.
Incubator farmer feedback helped shape key questions and sampling criteria. Farmers will review and pilot test data collection instruments. Further,, each apprentice may choose to co-facilitate a farmer interview. As an optional component, the apprentices may review and refine the preliminary findings as a group, helping to produce findings and reports. Some will also help disseminate the findings in local networks. By their involvement, apprentices will sharpen critical analysis skills and gain valuable insight into some of the opportunities and challenges for making a liveable income farming.
Education
Engagement: This 2-year apprenticeship runs twice for 35 weeks each, from April through November in 2024 and 2025. In 2023, we will run a pilot version of this apprenticeship, directly recruiting 3-5 graduates of our 2022 BFRDP, from April through November. In 2024 and 2025, 7-10 apprentices will be recruited yearly from the DC-Baltimore Metro area. Through ECO’s newsletter, website, social media pages and listservs, we expect to easily find participants, as these networks have consistently supplied quality applicants for our BFRDP, incubator farm and staff vacancies. Selection criteria will prioritize BFRDP graduates and former interns, as we target recent graduates seeking next-level farmer training.
Our retention strategies include: a competitive stipend ($15 an hour), a weekly CSA share, learner-centric classes and farm tours, strong supportive networks and the comradery of similarly situated historically-underserved co-learners. Apprentices will be supervised by the Farm Manager(s) and be equivalent to other part-time farm staff.
The apprenticeship will be divided into quarters, with specific tasks to complete each quarter. After the first quarter, apprentices will select at least one management area to lead, and will be responsible for all items on the management checklist, as well as briefing about their chosen area during team meetings.
An orientation each March introduces the apprentices to the project, one another and ECO staff. They’ll receive information about farm operations, including Standard Operating Procedures, the crop plan, and management checklists reflecting on-farm routines, which they’ll be required to review, validate, supplement and/or modify during the apprenticeship.
Learning: Our learner-centric model of experiential learning integrates elements of Fink’s significant learning framework, allowing each apprentice to experience the rhythms of urban farm life and to “think like a farmer” by anticipating and carrying out tasks in a self-directing learning model. They will complete 10-hours of farm-related work weekly, including:
- Attending a 1.5-hour virtual meeting to reflect upon concluded, and plan subsequent, work as a team.
- 8-hours of work scheduled in 2-hour blocks. Apprentices are encouraged to complete full-days on farm whenever their schedule allows.
- Two paid hours per month reserved for formal classroom instruction.
- Optional community-engagement activities (volunteer days, events, farmer-to-farmer tours) likely to occur on weekends.
The monthly class topics incorporate 9 areas of farm learning/mastery upon which the already completed BFRDP curriculum is based. Daily farm work assignments reinforce skills that correspond to these learning areas:
- Nursery/seedling management;
- Compost creation and management;
- Farm systems management;
- Marketing and farm finances
- Infrastructure and tools;
- Soil health;
- Crop health and maintenance (includes IPM);
- Farm and food safety;
- Farmer well-being and community relations/networking.
This list, honed over 6 years of BFRDP, incorporates feedback from trainees, ECO staff, and fellow farmers and emphasizes regenerative soil health and composting as keys to climate-sound farming. We center an understanding of the historic and contemporary social, economic and cultural context that inform our practices, and acknowledge the need to continually challenge racism, gendered stereotyping, and class/cultural biases. While each of learning area was addressed in the BFRDP, they will be approached differently in the apprenticeship:
- Lessons are more specific – i.e., a BFRDP class learns irrigation in general, while an apprenticeship class analyzes and demonstrates how to design and implement an effective drip system.
- Lessons are geared toward certification– i.e., a BFRDP food safety class provides general procedures, while an apprenticeship class applies specific GAP guidelines.
- Lessons are more holistic and practical. In leading a management area (irrigation, IPM, nursery, CSA), the apprentice will likely apply knowledge from one or more learning areas. (The attached curriculum document provides more information).
In the 2023 pilot version of this project, we will work with apprentices to create and refine the educational and evaluation tools to be used in subsequent project years.
Evaluation: We rely on a combination of formative and summative assessments. Apprentices complete pre- and post-self-assessments of their farming capabilities, meet regularly to discuss farm tasks and emerging skills, and quarterly reflect on their individual progress and their learning goals relative to the different management areas of the farm. The farm manager will develop an individual learning plan with each apprentice. Mastery may be assessed from portfolios of materials created, timetables established and documentation videos or SOPs. As formative assessment, apprentices will provide brief updates on their management area and receive feedback during meetings. Additionally, apprentices will share insights about their respective management roles with their cohort and BFRDP trainees. They will track work hours to ensure they are completing apprenticeship requirements.
Milestones
Feb 2023-Jan 2024 Progress Report
| Milestone | Timeframe | Status | Accomplishment Notes |
| 1. Engagement, learning, evaluation | 3/23-11/23 | Complete | Completed as proposed |
|
2. Engagement |
10/23-11/23 | Complete | Completed as proposed |
| 3. Engagement and evaluation | 12/23 | Complete | Completed in January 2024 |
| 4. Learning and evaluation | 3/24, 3/25 | Not begun | |
| 5. Learning | 4/24-11/24, 4/25-11/25 | Not begun | |
| 6. Learning and evaluation | 4/24-11/24, 4/25-11/25 | Not begun | |
|
7. Learning and evaluation |
4/24-11/24, 4/25-11/25 | Not begun | |
| 8. Evaluation | 4/24-11/24, 4/25-11/25 | Not begun | |
| 9. Evaluation | 4/24 and 11/24, 4/25 and 11/25. | Not begun | |
| 10. Evaluation | 5/24, 7/24, 9/24, and 11/24; 5/25, 7/25, 9/25, and 11/25 | Not begun | |
| 11. Evaluation | 11/24, 11/25 | Not begun |
The yearly apprenticeship will be divided into quarters: quarter 1 (April-May), quarter 2 (June-July), quarter 3 (August-September), and quarter 4 (October-November). These quarters are based on the type of farmwork and crops grown during each season on the farm. There will be a 2 week orientation in mid-March for each full project year. While the milestones are written to include the full membership of each cohort, we anticipate that at least 80% of apprentices will achieve the following milestones.
- Engagement, learning, evaluation: 3/23-11/23. At least 2 apprentices will be trained during the pilot version of the apprenticeship. ECO will reach out directly to BFRDP 2022 graduates who expressed an interest in an apprenticeship with ECO. We will work with this pilot cohort from March-November, following the milestones listed below to develop and refine our curriculum, educational products, and evaluation tools before the full program launch on 3/24.
- Engagement: 10/23-11/23, 10/24-11/24. Encourage 25 qualified farmers to apply per cohort (50 total) through ECO’s call for apprenticeship applications, via email listservs, social media, our website, and word of mouth. ECO will ask in the application where applicants heard about the opportunity.
- Engagement and evaluation: 12/23, 12/24. 7 apprentices per cohort (14 total) will be chosen from the pool of applicants to participate in each apprenticeship cohort. ECO will establish a screening checklist to evaluate the applications. The Edmonston Farm Manager (EFM) and members of the Project Advisory Committee will interview highly qualified potential candidates and evaluate them based on established selection criteria explained and weighed in a rubric.
- Learning and evaluation: 3/24, 3/25. 7 apprentices per cohort (14 total) will participate in a 2-week orientation to the apprenticeship and the farm led by ECO staff and project leaders. During this time, the EFM will work with each apprentice to develop an Individual Learning Plan (ILP), including a detailed assessment of strengths and learning goals. Orientation attendance will be tracked via sign-in logs.
- Learning: 4/24-11/24, 4/25-11/25. 7 apprentices per cohort (14 total) will participate in a monthly training class and/or farmer to farmer tour. The events organized by the EFM will result in 16 hours of classes/farm tours per cohort (32 hours total). Participation will be tracked by sign-in logs and workshop feedback exercise and reflection.
- Learning and evaluation: 4/24-11/24, 4/25-11/25. 7 apprentices per cohort (14 total) will participate in at least 80% of 350 individual hours of on-farm paid labor (280-350 hours). Each apprentice will report their weekly work hours to the EFM to track whether apprentices are meeting their work requirements.
- Learning and evaluation: 4/24-11/24, 4/25-11/25. 7 apprentices per cohort (14 total) will participate in a 1.5 hour weekly team meeting (total of 42 hours per apprentice) with the EFM to reflect on, plan, and evaluate progress on farm tasks, discuss each apprentice’s management area (beginning in quarter 2), and set a day-by-day work schedule.
- Evaluation: 4/24-11/24, 4/25-11/25. 7 apprentices per cohort (14 total) will evaluate and develop at least one Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for specific tasks on the farm to demonstrate understanding and competence in a format of their choice. This SOP will be shared with the apprenticeship cohort and uploaded into our digital ECO SOP library, hosted on Google Drive and YouTube.
- Evaluation: 4/24 and 11/24, 4/25 and 11/25. 7 apprentices per cohort (14 total) will complete and return a pre- and post-apprenticeship self-assessment to holistically measure the change in their knowledge, behavior, and attitude in each of our 9 learning areas. The self-assessment will be administered via a Google Form link emailed out by the EFM.
- Evaluation: 5/24, 7/24, 9/24, and 11/24; 5/25, 7/25, 9/25, and 11/25. 7 apprentices per cohort (14 total) will have an individual, 30-minute quarterly check-in with the EFM (2 hours total per apprentice). During this time, the apprentices will reflect upon and receive feedback on their work on the farm, their management area(s), and progress on their ILP. The EFM will record meeting notes in their ILP, which will be a shared Google Document.
- Evaluation: 11/24, 11/25. 7 apprentices per cohort (14 total) will prepare a “think like a farmer” presentation on the strategic decisions and planning required in their management area over the course of the year, using a format of choice, to ECO’s BFRDP trainees. Presentations will be saved and shared with future apprenticeship cohorts and BFRDP trainees in our digital library.
Evaluation and engagement: 12/25. ECO staff will generate the project final report and the Project Advisory Committee will review and comment upon it, prior to its submission to SARE; ECO staff will review all relevant materials generated throughout the project as well as the research conducted, ensuring that they are published on our website and otherwise made available to the public.
Milestone Activities and Participation Summary
Educational activities:
Participation Summary:
Learning Outcomes
Performance Target Outcomes
Target #1
15
Gain paid, strategic planning and decision-making experience: 80% of apprentices can evaluate the situational factors influencing a given task and describe a reasonable plan of action; 90% of apprentices update their resumes with paid farm management experience, 70% of apprentices document a strategy for whole-season management of one area of the farm; 80% of apprentices can aritculate a clear connection between urban farming and their personal and career goals
Up to 15 highly trained farmers who will be motivated and prepared to farm: 90% of apprentices demonstrate an observed increase skills and knowledge across more than half of management areas, 70% of apprentices feel more prepared to farm than before, 60% of apprentices have plans to continue urban farming in some capacity
2
Gained compensated (paid in one case, compensated with in-kind compost donations in the other), strategic planning and decision-making experience: apprentices were able to evaluate the situational factors influencing a given task and describe a reasonable plan of action to accomplish said task; 1 apprentice updated their resume with paid farm experience, one apprentice documented SOPs for one area (harvest and wash-pack) of the farm; both apprentices aritculated a clear connection between urban farming and their personal and career goals
2 apprentices are now more prepared to farm: 2 apprentices demonstrated an observable increase in skills and knowledge; 2 apprentices feel more prepared to farm than before, 2 apprentices have plans to continue urban farming in some capacity
February 2023-January 2024
In the pilot year, several prelimiary versions of verification method tools were developed. The farm manager held regular check-ins with apprentices, and held a meeting in May to determine apprentice goals in their ILPs. The farm manager also made field observations of apprentices, and tracked apprentice attendance at monthly classes.
Much of the learning, observation, and feedback between the farm manager and the apprentices happened in an on-the-fly, in the field conext that made recording changes in apprentice learning difficult. More formal checkins were useful, but often occured at such a large interval of time past the inital learning or feedback moment in the field as to feel irrelevant in helping trainees improve. Going forward, the farm manager will set up a format for apprentices to keep a learning and labor log each week. These logs will help apprentices track their own formative understandings of their learning in the field as it's happening.
Additionally, the farm manager will keep their own learning and labor log, so as to have points of comparison for data tracked by apprentices, and develop a rubric for evaluating apprentice skills that more easily corresponds with use in the field. An apprentice from 2023 requested, in their exit interview, more intentional educational scaffolding around labor experiences in the field, and clearer goalposts for understanding how they were meeting labor expectations on the farm.
Additional Project Outcomes
February 2023 - January 2024
In the pilot year, ECO staff trialed an alternative scheduling and compensation format with one of the apprentices, Apprentice B. Apprentice B was a long time volunteer on the farm and a graduate of the 2022 class of ECO's beginning farmer training program. Due to Apprentice B's work schedule, they were only able to come in 2 Fridays a month. They also asked be compensated in-kind for their farm labor with compost produced on the farm, instead of being paid an hourly wage. In their orientation meeting and interview, they stated that they felt relatively well-equipped to understand the physical aspects of farming, but less equipped to understand how the business side of things, specifically how to run a non-profit farm like ECO. Their long-term goal was to establish a similar education and farm non-profit organization, but aimed at supporting veterans.
There were several unexpected outcomes from this arrangement with Apprentice B. It became clear right away that it was not the goal or orientation of ECO's apprenticeship program to train apprentices how to run the back-end of a non-profit farm -- for example, searching for and applying to grants, courting funders, and designing educational programs. While apprenticeships could touch on these areas, the program was oriented towards field work, with some administrative and planning tasks born out of that same fieldwork. Additionally, while it was compelling to test out different scheduling systems and hourly commitments -- especially given Apprentice B's long-term commitment to ECO -- Apprentice B's bi-monthly schedule was ultimately not sufficient to establish the more day-to-day familiarity with the farm. Finally, Apprentice B's compensation arrangement raised internal conversations about alternative and additional ways to compensate apprentices for their labor on the farm.
ECO staff also held internal conversations about apprentice compensation. In our proposal, we budgeted for more apprentices and a stipend of $15 an hour. However, after reflecting on both the compensation offered for farm laborers at non-profit farms in DC, and our priorities around paying our mostly Black and brown apprentices adequately for their labor, we decided to raise the hourly rate for apprentices to $17.50. We also realized that both the interest from BFTP graduates, and the actual, tangible labor needs of the farm were better suited to recruiting between 4 and 5 apprentices, instead of the original 7 or 8 we had originally anticipated.
February 2023 -January 2024
In the first year of the project, the pilot year, apprentice A said that their season working and learning on the farm gave them not only a fuller understanding of how the farm functions over the course of the season, but also the ability to reconnect with the educator within themself. Apprentice A Apprentice A said on a number of occasions that they felt grounded and renewed by their involvement with the farm, and over the course of the season demonstrated significant initiative in developing SOPs for the farm via short videos. They stated that their goal in creating these videos was to increase the accessibility of farm SOPs, as written SOPs can feel too technical and/or over-whelming for new workers or volunteers, and to make them especially understandable for youth. We have a large summer youth program that employs high school students on the farm and are always seeking more effective ways of teaching them about how we work on the farm.
Though Apprentice A in their exit interview stated that they are not seeking further employment as a farmer at this time; however they do have a long term goal of purchasing land in or around Prince George's County (where ECO is based) and farming on it cooperatively with others. Apprentice A stated that their time working on the farm made them more aware of their own values -- a desire to form communities based around learning, access to food and green spaces, and mutual uplift.
Apprentice B, despite apprenticing for fewer hours on the farm in 2023, remains committed to their originally stated goal of purchasing land to run a farm somewhere in or adjacent to PG County in the next five years.
February 2023 -January 2024
The farm manager noted several areas for improvement in the pilot year of the program.
- Cohort relationship building and staff integration: The pilot year's rushed start underscored the need for a more thorough orientation period at the beginning of the season. Pilot year apprentices hit the ground running, and while they did well, a more thorough orientation period to familiarize apprentices with farm staff, systems, and labor expectations would be useful. This orientation will incorporate dedicated time to plotting out apprentice schedules for the majority of the year, filling out onboarding documents, familiarizing apprentices with all staff and farm SOPs, and hosting at least one cohort-bonding activity. Additionally, the farm manager will coordinate with the incubator farm manager, and the beginning farmer training program manager, to integrate apprentices with other educational activities taking place on the farm.
- Apprenticeship learning plans: Apprentices should have concrete projects that link to their farm management goals, and part of paid time could be thought of as working towards these goals. This could take the form of lining up interviews for farm work the following season, developing a draft of a business plan, developing an enterprise budget, etc.
- Compensation: At the beginning of the pilot year, ECO staff had conversations about adequate compensation for apprentices. In our original budget, we set our apprentice hourly wage at $15 an hour; subsequent research into the wages of entry-level workers at similar non-profit farms in DC set off a series of internal conversations about adequate compensation, especially for BIPOC farmers, given that most apprentices would be Black and brown graduates from our beginning farmer training program. Feedback from 2023 pilot year apprentices, as well as conversations with 2024 apprentices, revealed that while the hourly wage does not approach meeting our new farmer's actual financial needs, it does act as a hefty motivator for participating in the program. Note: $15 is the now the minimum wage in Maryland, Massachusetts and much of the region, and is insufficient for a full-time livable wage for the majority of our new farmer apprentices who provide for families and whose prior careers were better paying.