Keeping vegetable farmers growing through one-on-one professional peer coaching

At this point, we have engaged with at least 68 farmers through this project. Twenty farmers participated in an experiential farm coaching session at a regional farming conference. Fifty farmers have submitted coaching inquiries. Thirty-five of those farmers completed an exploratory coaching call, with thirty-two of them choosing to formally participate in farm coaching. Of those 32 farmers, 3 of them are outside of the subsidy range which also speaks to the value that farmers are placing on farm coaching support services. Demand for coaching services across the grant timeline have remained steady, with spikes of inquiries after outreach at conferences and through newsletters and articles.

Over the course of the grant we identified two additional needs that led to modified approaches for connecting the farmers with the right support at the right time: the need for affiliation based cohorts, and further developing the facilitation skills of select staff and Technical Advisory Team members who engage with farmers on a regular basis. Because peer-to-peer support has been an area that FairShare repeatedly hears is important from farmers, these avenues felt like a natural extension of coaching. Additionally, for folks who aren't ready to dive into coaching due to a lack of understanding of how coaching differs from therapy, being able to have more generalized conversations about farm stress seems to be needed.

One of our coaches established a women-centered cohort that focused on coaching as well as developing strong relationships with peers in order to expand their circle of support beyond an individual coach. The cohort of 10 women participated in 20 group gatherings and each woman was able to access 3 private coaching sessions over the course of six months. The private coaching sessions were utilized to set intentions for what they wanted to gain from the group, and discuss any individual challenges around which they needed specific support.  

Coach-supported topics for the cohort included perfectionism, burnout, fear of other people’s opinions and how those can be detrimental to farm business decisions, delegation and asking for help, vision and values setting to create a balanced farm and work life, and rest - among others.  There were also sessions where participants could choose to share their story and struggles with the full group, and hear from fellow farmers how they addressed similar challenges and receive support from the cohort.  

In addition to group meetings, a WhatsApp group was established to allow for ongoing support and celebration – which is still active. The relationships formed during the cohort have also led to group meetups at participant-owned farms, at Marbleseed, and other locations. 

One cohort participant shared “Most of the concrete progress for me personally happened in our individual sessions. What I loved most about the group…was connecting with other women farmers and discovering that even though what we were growing was different, we all struggled with the same things.  That was really a surprise and helped me to feel better about my own struggles. I also thought the community support around problems was great and valuable.”

Facilitation training is focused on helping women who facilitate conversations with farmers and rural communities develop stronger skills.  While facilitation training isn’t the same as becoming a certified coach, as we engaged with farmers and listened to their feedback about coaching, we heard multiple times of the importance of establishing connections with their peers in helping them to navigate challenging situations.  The facilitation training helps conveners create an atmosphere of safety, navigate meaningful dialogue around challenging topics, and foster supportive relationships between the participants. This training will ultimately carry the intention of the grant forward. By having skilled facilitators able to create welcoming spaces to discuss difficult topics such as leaving the field and burnout, we can help farmers to identify practices that can help them decide to stay in farming, including the opportunity to connect with a coach. Indeed, this training will support Katie Bishop as she continues her coaching and cohort facilitation; Beth Knorr is able to utilize the training to support her role facilitating a Farm Stress Management Cohort that emerged through the Midwest Vegetable Growers Network (MVEG) Farmer Resilience and Health working group, which is helping farmers to develop actionable farm stress management plans; and Sarah Janes Ugoretz as she continues her work facilitating BTEC and TEAMS, both labor management programs that have had previous support from SARE. 

During the course of the grant we had one coach step down due to capacity constraints.  There was discussion about whether or not we needed to fill the spot and ultimately the two remaining coaches felt they could manage the remainder of the available slots for subsidized coaching. Additionally, due to changing roles Claire Strader stepped down as a Technical Advisory member and Sarah Janes Ugoretz filled that role.  And with Sarah’s changing role Beth Knorr stepped in as the FairShare staff point person.