Mapping Sustainable Farm Systems: An Integrated Focus on Upper South New Producers as Catalysts of "Good Stewardship"

The key characteristics of our study participants are summarized in Tables 1 and 2 below. Please note that our analysis is still in progress. Results and recommendations presented below are still preliminary.

Table 1. Participants in the Listening Sessions (N=91)

Results of Listening Sessions

The key findings from 16 listening sessions are summarized below:

Finding 1. Priority Resources and Information Sources. Established farmers provide local knowledge by: (a) answering locally specific questions and help gain access to find/share/maintain physical resources (e.g., land, equipment); (b) helping beginning farmers access the local farming community; and (c) providing a valuable connection with a neighbor farmer Family is relied upon as mentors who provide local knowledge and investors who provide access to land and other resources. Land-grant universities and Cooperative Extension Services are important, but mainly for scientific and unbiased information about biophysical/technical farming systems. Governmental resources are mostly utilized for specific services and programming (e.g., CRP, EQIP, FSA loans). Nonprofits, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and community based organizations (CBOs) provide educational resources/opportunities and specific technical assistance mostly for niche farms. Private businesses provides product information and resources to improve the use of inputs (e.g., seed salesmen, equipment dealers, bank loan officers)

Finding 2. Sustainable Farming Opportunities. Farmers valued cooperative efforts in their communities, particularly equipment sharing (e.g., commercial kitchens, tractors, mobile slaughter houses, honey spinners, etc.) and knowledge sharing through a network of organizations and individuals. Farmers use many different, inexpensive labor sources, including volunteer/free labor (e.g., inmates, youth organizations, interns), and migrant labor who are paid “under the table”. Farmers are selling their products to a variety of direct market outlets (e.g., farmers market, CSA, U-pick) though aggregators that cater to small operations are accessed (e.g., food hubs, livestock auctions).

Finding 3. Sustainable Farming Challenges. Accessing adequate labor is difficult because farm work is not a competitive or attractive; local sources for labor are unreliable when found; and farmers are resistant to hire migrant labor. Accessing suitable and size-appropriate markets, proper processors within a driving distance, and distributors for small, start-up farms is difficult.  Capital is hard to access as a beginner, particularly appropriate loans large enough to buy land/equipment necessary to operate a profitable farm enterprise. Beginning farmers are hesitant to assume debt/risk even when loans are attainable. Depending on the location of the farm, access to off-farm income and savings varies among beginning farmers.  Accessing good supplies and equipment appropriate for type, size and scale of operation is also difficult.

Results of Case Studies

Through our analysis of case study data using the community capital framework, we have found the following:

Finding 1. Farming Philosophy. One of the most important aspects of the farmers’ cultural capital system is his/her philosophy or worldviews. We found is that most beginning farmers have heroes/heroines (e.g., Wendell Berry, Joe Salatin, their own family member) to whom they aspire and follow in creating their own “sustainable” farm and to formulate self-identity as “sustainable” farmers.

Table 2. Typologies of Case Study Participants (N=9)

Finding 2. Definition of Success. These worldviews guide farmers to select particular farming and marketing methods, and therefore their unique definitions of a successful farm operation. In turn, their choices in farming practices have concrete environmental consequences such as soil management while their marketing practices impact financial sustainability.

Finding 3. Thresholds/Capital Influences. Beginning farmers reach certain points where they are forced to reevaluate the balance between their farming philosophy and farming practices and their strategy to negotiate/utilize diverse capital resources to mitigate biophysical, socioeconomic and cultural risks. Most common thresholds concern the questions of whether to scale up their farm operation and how many market outlets to maintain. All these decisions involve the purchase of additional tools and equipment, hiring of seasonal labor outside their family, and the improvement of record keeping.

Finding 4. Labor Challenges. Across all eight case studies, labor was raised as a consistent challenge. At some points, they experienced a feeling of “burnout”. Farmers complained about their difficulties in finding consistent, capable labor at a reasonable cost. Additional labor adds complexity to their farm operation, thus requiring them to improve their management and bookkeeping skills. All eight farmers were struggling to balance their desire to expand their operations with an increased need for additional labor.

Finding 5. Family and Neighbor Support. Through our case study farmers, we found that safety net offered by relatives and neighbor farmers reduce risks, and thereby helping beginning farmers remain farming. Our case farmers avoided large loans by gaining access to farm land at either free or a low-rent lease agreements, and to farm machinery through equipment sharing with their relatives and/or neighbors. A diverse array of labor support by these support networks also buffers financial risks for beginning farmers. Peer farmers who were not geographically close also served as cultural, social, and human assets. They were used as a learning community to teach beginning farmers “tricks of the trade” in building a sustainable farm which is commercially viable and socially cohesive in the community.

Lessons for Support Providers

In this project, we have confirmed enormous diversity among beginning farmers in their background prior to their entry to farming, the type of farming systems they construct, and their visions for a sustainable farming system. We found two critical factors that contribute to shaping these farmers’ trajectories in creating and participating in particular types of farm/food systems in the Upper Southeast region.

Factor 1. Institutional Sources for Technical Knowledge. Beginning farmers develop knowledge and skills for sustainable farming from numerous sources. They are amazingly creative and innovative in identifying the necessary information, evaluating its efficacy, and incorporating it into their farming practices as they see fit. Many farmer participants had a bachelor’s degree; some are related to agriculture while others are not. Their entry point to farming, or their “aha moment” when they decided to go into farming, was critical in understanding their journey in building a sustainable farm system. That moment shapes their vision for the sustainable farming system which they wish to construct and their approaches to accessing various institutional sources they will likely use to realize their ideal farming system. Heritage farmers were more likely to rely on “traditional” institutional mechanisms such as Cooperative Extension Service, Land-grant Experiment Stations, and input companies to seek technical advice for sustainable farming methods. Non-heritage farmers were less likely to find these institutional sources of technical knowledge useful. Instead, they are more likely to use diverse materials, e.g., books written by charismatic farmers, online reports and publications, as the first step to gain background knowledge. This finding suggests a more diverse range of support services will be needed to assist beginning farmers develop their knowledge and skills. The availability of training programs in their region that fits their schedule and timeframe will likely ease their hardship in making a transition from non-farming profession to farming.

Finding 2. Informal Networks for Information Sharing. Our participants reported that other farmers, both established (veteran) or beginning (novice), were a primary source of information. Their questions to other farmers typically relate to specific farming or enterprise management practices and tap into the other farmers' tacit knowledge and experience. Heritage farmers commonly directed questions to a farming family member (e.g., father, mother, uncle, aunt). Although heritage farmers recognized that family members have extensive knowledge, there also was general recognition that such knowledge often corresponded with strong opinions about the "right" way to do something and discouragement relative to new methods such as organic farming or enterprise lines such as CSA. Nonheritage farmers also valued the opinions and knowledge of established farmers. They tended to consult a "mentor" farmer with whom they had apprenticed or interned or a well-regarded farmer with whom they had a standing relationship and shared similar production philosophies or methods. Because many of these farmers were newly located in a region, they valued the insights of other farmers in the vicinity with regard to questions about area-specific issues, such as the unique characteristics of local soil and topography. This finding validates the usefulness of farmer mentoring for beginning farmers, one of the most common outreach/extension approaches used by USDA-BFRD-funded projects. Fostering informal networks to support beginning farmers will be a challenge to be addressed by support service providers, including universities and Cooperative Extension Service. Our research and Extension work has been exclusively focusing on capacity building of individual beginning farmers while neglecting the importance of “community infrastructure” to provide necessary support to beginning farmers.

The first lesson for support providers is a need to both widen and deepen their knowledge in farming and agricultural marketing so as to serve a broader range of clients with diverse goals. Our data show that no single definition or typology captures beginning farmers in the Upper Southeast region. Each beginning farmer use a unique definition of success, which frames his/her plan for building a commercially viable, sustainable farm enterprise. This poses a challenge to many service providers who tend to be familiar with particular types of farming operations, but not others. Support service providers need to be able to translate diverse definitions of sustainable farming into a wider range of farming and marketing practices.

Second, more support services are needed beyond farming and marketing techniques. To be successful, beginning farmers tap into a diverse range of capital systems to implement their plans to on-farm and marketing practices. Available human, cultural, and social capital systems are often depended on their family, education, and their unique life experiences. From in-depth interviews with beginning farmers, we have learned the importance of constantly expanding these capitals beyond with what they started. For example, while market access is a challenge, developing and maintaining each market outlet is even more critical and requires relatives and peers who are willing to help out farmers and customers who constantly return to purchase their products. Support providers need to design and offer services to assist beginning farmers with building human, cultural, and social capitals.

Because our data collection and analysis took so long, we were unable to meet Objective 3, that is to “[d]esign a support infrastructure that includes targeted outreach and educational programs to address these challenges and meet their needs by establishing a regional network of universities, government, and community-based organizations (CBOs).” However, over the last four years, we have built a strong working relationship among our project team and identified the key CBOs for our future collaborations to design and implement outreach and educational programs.