Washington DC Urban Orchard Professional Development Program

Final report for SNE20-016-D

Project Type: PDP State Program
Funds awarded in 2020: $33,320.00
Projected End Date: 09/30/2022
Grant Recipient: University of the District of Columbia
Region: Northeast
State: Washington, DC
State Coordinators:
Matt Gardine
University of the District of Columbia
Co-Coordinators:
Michael Whyte
The University of the District of Columbia
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Project Information

Summary:

Problem and Justification:

The Washington, DC Metro Area does not produce enough fruit to meet local demand. Maryland and Virginia show deficits for almost all locally-grown fruits; Washington, DC fares even worse in this regard. Space constraints in a densely-populated urban setting, rapid increases on land leases, and perceived skill deficits among farmers have, in previous years, prevented D.C.'s urban farmers from expanding into the urban orcharding sector, despite its lucrative potential.

Recent changes in D.C. law, concerning the use of public lands and privately-owned vacant lots, have ameliorated some problems facing urban farmers. The city now offers more incentives to set deeper roots and seek professional development in the area of orchard production that offers excellent financial returns, albeit spread out over a longer timeline. Many farmers are now eager to attend skills workshops that increase their knowledge and skill sets in the areas of fruit tree production and orchard management. Management of these perennial tree crops offers District farmers an opportunity to contribute to the solution of local fruit deficits in Washington, DC while also securing a great return on a farmer's investment.

Solution and Approach

To address the agricultural need and meet farmer demands, I propose a professional development program that extends fruit growing techniques to local Agricultural Service Providers (ASP). These specialized skills will prepare selected ASPs to re-enter their community and train local farmers in subsequent years. By May 1, 2021, the SARE State Coordinator will recruit a group of ten ASPs to participate in a comprehensive suite of training workshops, seminars, and field practicums held at UDC’s Agricultural Experiment Station. The trainings will focus on teaching participants how to successfully plan, implement, and manage a fruit-bearing orchard.

The PD project will focus entirely on specialty and native fruit varieties in the Mid-Atlantic region. Program participants will develop orcharding skills for specialty products (such as pawpaws, persimmons, blackberries, and raspberries) that exhibit the potential to offer higher returns from small-scale operations.

The State Coordinator will recruit ASPs from local nonprofits and government agencies. These ASPs and farmers will be expected to return the following year to assist in instructing a new class of trainees.

We will assess and verify successful outcomes through pre-and post-testing, interviews with participants, and mid-point evaluations of candidates' abilities and engagement. The completed PD project will culminate with the planting of twenty fruit trees at urban farms throughout the city as well as the formation of an orchard manager mentoring program staffed by the PD program's trainees.

Performance Target:

Twenty Agricultural Service Providers will be selected to attend extension workshops and classes that either (1) establish, or (2) further develop orcharding skills. This newly-developed set of skills will prepare at least ten of the ASPs to train thirty DC-area farmers. The resultant farmer training will prompt the farmers to plant fruit trees or fruit-producing bushes on their land in or around the District of Columbia over the PDP's two-year period.

Introduction:

Agricultural Need: 

The DC metropolitan region’s farms are failing to meet the local consumer demand for fresh fruit as demonstrated by Maryland Grown’s publication of state production deficit in all fruit types (https://mdfoodsystemmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Maryland-Grown.pdf). While DC farmers grow substantial amounts of vegetables for local consumption, the city’s commercial fruit production sector has only recently begun its nascencyLargely due to perceived barriers centered around acreage/time commitments and skills deficienciesfruit tree production is viewed by DC farmers as too onerous for sustained investment. Most have chosen to meet consumer vegetable demand while allowing distant states and countries to monopolize local fruit sales. 

As the fruit consumption deficit widens, the urban forager movement grows to fill in the gaps. Sites like www.fallingfruit.org offer locavores seeking home-grown fruit the opportunity to locate it themselves when farmers fall short of meeting the community’s demand. 

However, with the passage of the District’s Urban Farming and Food Security Amendment Act of 2015owners of vacant land used for urban farming saw their tax liability drop precipitously (See bill). This law frees District landowners from the economic pressure to seek rapid financial return on their investments by means of residential and commercial development at the expense of any urban farming leaseholders. Upon passage of the law, urban orcharding (with its long-term reward structure) became a more realistic pursuit for many urban farmers and the demand for specialized knowledge in orchard management and fruit tree propagation increased. The University of the District of Columbia’s (UDC) Office of Agricultural Extension and the District’s relevant agencies have struggled to keep up with the demand for this knowledgeonly adding to the production bottleneck.  

Proposed Solution: 

To address the agricultural need, I propose an educational program that teaches fruit growing techniques to ASPs and prepares them to enter the community and train local farmers in subsequent years. By May 1, 2021, the SARE State Coordinator will recruit a group of ten ASPs to participate in a comprehensive suite of training workshops, seminars, and field practicums held at UDC’s Agricultural Experiment Station (AES). The trainings will focus on the requisite elements to successfully plan, implement, and manage a fruit-bearing orchard for market.

Acknowledging the difficulty of staying economically competitive with international fruit producers in the era of globalized food production, the PD project will focus entirely on specialty and native fruit varieties in the Midatlantic region. Program participants will develop orcharding skills for widely-grown bush berries (such as the raspberry and the blackberry) as well as specialty products (such as the pawpaw and the persimmon) that exhibit the potential to offer higher returns from small-scale operations (https://www.uky.edu/ccd/sites/www.uky.edu.ccd/files/persimmon.pdf). 

The principle barrier to this project will be the extended period of time beginning at the propagation of the first sapling to the earliest harvestsWe will conduct all trainings related to orchard planning, propagation, and nutrient/pest management on the grounds of UDC’s AESAny trainings pertaining to pollinating, pruning, and harvesting techniques will be held at offsite locations that propagate the program-relevant trees and bushes. The DC Department of Urban Forestry flags the locations of many of these trees in its planting database. Private farmers and orchard managers will be consulted in order to locate any other trees not growing on DC public lands. 

 Agricultural Service Provider Interest: 

We will seek applications from staff members in the UDC Office of Agricultural Extension as well as from nonprofit and D.C. government agency employees engaging in similar work/research in the fields of agroforestry, outdoor education/recreation, and environmental stewardship. The ASPs we select will likely have a pre-existing community outreach component to their current jobs. 

As the District’s burgeoning urban orcharding sector takes root, many agencies and nonprofits are vying for the distinction of being the chief extension resource for DC urban farmers. The opportunity to engage in sought after professional development and also to refine their extension methods the following year will be adequate enticement to keep the ASPs engaged indefinitely. 

The farmers with whom we engage will be given the unique opportunity to interact with future farmers and orchard keepers who are interested in building a sustainable fruit growers network that produces specialty itemfor residents living in DC and its peripheryLike Master Gardeners, this class of farmers will be selected based on their eagerness to conduct professional outreach to their current and future colleagues. 

Advisors/Cooperators

Click linked name(s) to expand/collapse or show everyone's info
  • Nazirahk Amen - Producer
  • Mchezaji Axum
  • Brian Barnes

Educational Approach

Educational approach:

Recruitment

Project beneficiaries will principally consist of ASPs who have affirmed their interest in (1) learning how to propagate orchard crops, and (2) extending their acquired knowledge. Agricultural Service Providers may come from any profession, but we will target employees at national, statewide, and local agencies and nonprofits dealing with agriculture and/or the environment. We will reach out to likely candidates early in the process by holding three information sessions prior to the application drop date. Interested parties will submit an application for review and five ASPs will be selected from the candidate pool.

Project beneficiaries will consist of DC urban farmers who are interested in expanding the variety of crops grown on their farms. The University of the District of Columbia will release on its website an application form for interested parties to complete. Application questions will inquire about size of the farm operation, amount of time left on the occupant's lease, as well as farmer's distribution networks.

For the program's second year, a new crop of ten ASP participants will be selected using the same methods from the first year. During the PDP's Year 2, ASPs who participated in the Year 1 training will be encouraged to come back and (co-)teach a training module of their choosing.

Education

The SARE State Coordinator will incorporate multiple teaching methods into his educational approach.

Classroom instruction will focus on the broader points of orchard planning and management. These classroom instruction sessions will provide participating ASPs with available resources from other Land-grant institutions while covering strategies that direct the ASP toward self-guided orchard planning. Primarily, these sessions will be intended to initiate group discussions on the best practices in near- and long-term planning, market entry, and product value-addition. Trainers won't be able to answer every scenario-specific question, but the goal is to set each participant on the right foot to return to their home or office and direct their own search for answers.

Guest speakers will be invited to attend some classroom sessions. The hope is that these speakers share stories from their own personal experience and end with a Q&A session during which participants will be able to hear about different problem-solving strategies from established orchard managers. Ideally, the best conversations often take place over a meal, so we would schedule these sessions for the lunchtime hour as a brownbag session.

The next (and most important) education method will be field practicums held on the grounds of the University of the District of Columbia's Agricultural Experiment Station (AES) in Beltsville, MD. These field practicums will cover the basics of orchard management (i.e. transplanting saplings, nutrient management, pruning, and pest management).

Field Visits will also serve as critical educational tools. Because the orchard work SARE will be initiating at the AES is so new, there will be few (if any) established fruit trees to use as demonstration subjects for the educational program. We will reach out to the DC Department of Urban Forestry as well as any orchard managers who might be willing to welcome a small group on to their land so that we may practice the techniques used to manage mature fruit trees. This is where the bulk of training on pollination, harvesting, and distribution must occur.

The following year, classes will either be facilitated or co-facilitated by both the ASPs and the farmers who engaged in the first year of the program. These instructors will submit lesson plans to the State Coordinator for review and their instruction will prove valuable as they will have once been exactly where the second year of students sits.

Verification

The project outcomes will be tracked and verified in 3 ways:

  • Knowledge gained by participants
    • Pre- and Post-Test for each educational module
    • In-person interviews conducted by State Coordinator (both years) to confirm knowledge retention.
    • Feed-back from advisors/ASPs.
    • Through observation of demonstrated skills, and by evaluating work in the training plots.
  • Actions by key individuals (staff and service providers) involved in the program
    • Support ASPs in the development of their curricula for the following year’s program.
    • Host two field days during which participants present to visitors the work that has been completed at the site.
  • Indicators of successful outcome
    • Economic Indicators
      • Agricultural Service Providers will assist farmers in comparing the 'real' cost of propagating/maintaining fruit trees and/or bushes to the projected benefits (using regional and national data) of market sales of harvested fruit.
    • Social Indicators
      • Has community interest in the farm increased as a result of start of a tree fruit program?
    • Environmental Indicators
      • A count of new saplings planted at both the AES as well as at participating farms will be counted at the project’s conclusion and the data will be submitted to the DC Urban Forestry Division of the District Department of Transportation.
      • Discussion on the benefits of orchard implementation for urban brownsite reclamation will follow.

Data Collection: Data will be collected throughout the program, specifically (a) before, during, and after completing course modules, (b) at the program's midpoint, and (c) at the program's conclusion.

The following supportive guidance and tools will be provided:

  • Enrollment forms that explain the project focus, scope, and objectives
  • Data sheets and templates of checklists where participants record information about their project activities
  • Attendance Sheets
  • Numeric grading system on a 0-100 scale to measure improvement over time.

Milestones

Milestone #1 (click to expand/collapse)
What beneficiaries do and learn:

Fifty Agricultural Service Providers will be encouraged to apply for a spot in the SARE Washington, DC Urban Orcharding Program.

By November 1, 2020, the application for the YEAR 1 PDP will be sent out over the website and listserv emails to encourage recruitment.

By September 1, 2021, the application for the YEAR 2 PDP will be sent out over the website and listserv emails to encourage recruitment.

Proposed number of agriculture service provider beneficiaries who will participate:

50

Proposed Completion Date:

September 01, 2021

Status:

In Progress

Milestone #2 (click to expand/collapse)
What beneficiaries do and learn:

By November 1, 2020, ten Agricultural Service Providers will be accepted into the SARE Urban Orcharding Professional Development Plan (YEAR 1).

By September 1, 2021, ten Agricultural Service Providers will be accepted into the SARE Urban Orcharding Professional Development Plan (YEAR 2).

Proposed number of agriculture service provider beneficiaries who will participate:

20

Proposed Completion Date:

September 01, 2021

Status:

In Progress

Milestone #3 (click to expand/collapse)
What beneficiaries do and learn:

Ten Agricultural Service Providers in YEAR 1 will complete trainings to prepare them for the successful management of fruit trees and bushes. (See attached curriculum.)

Proposed number of agriculture service provider beneficiaries who will participate:

10

Proposed Completion Date:

August 01, 2021

Status:

In Progress

Milestone #4 (click to expand/collapse)
What beneficiaries do and learn:

Five Agricultural Service Providers who participated in YEAR 1 PDP will provide the SARE State Coordinator for Washington, DC with their curriculum plans for teaching specific modules for YEAR 2.

Proposed number of agriculture service provider beneficiaries who will participate:

5

Proposed Completion Date:

January 01, 2022

Status:

In Progress

Milestone #5 (click to expand/collapse)
What beneficiaries do and learn:

Five ASPs from the PDP's YEAR 1 will teach a second class of ten ASPs during the PDP's YEAR 2. While all ten ASPs from YEAR 1 will be encouraged to return in order to (co-)teach a module of their choosing, the SARE State Coordinator anticipates a drop-off of interest from those ASPs once their training has concluded.

Proposed number of agriculture service provider beneficiaries who will participate:

15

Proposed Completion Date:

August 01, 2022

Status:

In Progress

Milestone #6 (click to expand/collapse)
What beneficiaries do and learn:

Ten of the participating Agricultural Service Providers will encourage local area farmers to plant fruit-producing trees and bushes. The ASPs will report the number of transplanted saplings and seedlings to the Project Team, the DC Department of Urban Forestry, and any other nearby municipal agencies who maintain similar jurisdiction.

Proposed number of farmer beneficiaries who will participate:

30

Proposed number of agriculture service provider beneficiaries who will participate:

10

Proposed Completion Date:

September 01, 2022

Status:

In Progress

Milestone #7 (click to expand/collapse)
What beneficiaries do and learn:

On July 24, 2021, the ten Agricultural Service Providers participating in YEAR 1 of the PDP will attend a field day held at the teaching orchard located on the grounds of the University of the District of Columbia's Agricultural Experiment Station in order to share information about the program with visitors and invited guests.

On July 23, 2022, the ten Agricultural Service Providers participating in YEAR 2 of the PDP will attend a field day held at the teaching orchard located on the grounds of the University of the District of Columbia's Agricultural Experiment Station in order to share information about the program with visitors and invited guests.

Proposed number of agriculture service provider beneficiaries who will participate:

50

Proposed Completion Date:

July 23, 2022

Status:

In Progress

Milestone #8 (click to expand/collapse)
What beneficiaries do and learn:

By September 1, 2021, the SARE State Coordinator will interview the ten participants of the YEAR 1 PDP to evaluate acquired technical skills and to assess projected plans for training farmers.

By September 1, 2022, the SARE State Coordinator will interview the ten participants of the YEAR 2 PDP to evaluate acquired technical skills and to assess projected plans for training farmers.

Proposed number of agriculture service provider beneficiaries who will participate:

20

Proposed Completion Date:

September 01, 2022

Status:

In Progress

Performance Target Outcomes

Performance Target Outcomes - Service Providers

Target #1

Target: Number of service providers who will take action to educate/advise farmers:
10
Target: The educational action(s) they will take:

Ten Agricultural Service Providers will use recommended sustainable fruit crop production practices learned through the PDP to encourage thirty DC-area farmers and gardeners to plant fruit trees or bushes on their land. The aim is to help a team of agricultural producers develop orcharding skills that will produce financial incentives and benefits through responsible land management.

Target: The number of farmers who will be educated/advised by the service providers:
30
Target: Total size/scale of the farms these farmers manage (e.g. total acres or animal units managed, gross sales or production volume, etc.):
The educational action(s) taken:

SARE Outreach

Outreach about SARE:

Outreach will be provided by several means:

  1. Distributing email notices of SARE grant announcements to colleagues in CAUSES, and responding to inquiries;
  2. Distributing email notices of SARE grant announcements to appropriate contacts developed in the community through CAUSES outreach activities, and responding to inquiries;
  3. Exhibiting information and/or making presentations about SARE grant programs and educational activities during both scheduled field days (7/24/2021 & 7/23/2022) and other outreach events organized by CAUSES/UDC;
  4. Exhibiting information, and/or making relevant presentations about SARE grant programs and educational activities during proposed project duration.
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.