Progress report for SNE24-013-VT
Project Information
Twenty (20) Extension and farmer educators gain capacity (increased knowledge, skills and confidence) to address social sustainability and human risk that affect persistence and resilience, particularly among underserved and new farm audiences.
Twelve (12) participants engage in new or deeper collaborations with at least one partner representing underserved audiences. Twelve (12) participants incorporate new labor management and human risk management content in their programs and/or modify outreach and delivery practices so that these programs are more inclusive and equitable in their work with at least 60 farm employees and aspiring, beginning and established farm operators.
As a result of oversight from six ASPs and farmers serving on the project's accountability committee, community interests and equity goals are central to decisions about activities and allocation of funding contained in the 2027 VT State proposal.
Community Engagement
In the current, dynamic environment of limited farm labor availability, escalating wages and narrow farm profit margins, creating and maintaining a productive farm workforce is a challenge for many farmers in Vermont and across the Northeast. It is a particularly pivotal issue for post start-up beginning farmers (an audience with disproportionate representation of people who identify as women, LGBTQ+, BIPOC) who are seeking to scale production and gain efficiencies to meet business and income goals. USDA data consistently shows that farms in which people from historically underserved and/or what USDA terms “socially disadvantaged” communities are the primary operators tend to be smaller and more vulnerable to a broad range of agricultural risks, many of which are further amplified on beginning farms.
At the same time, data collected through Northeast SARE’s DEIJ initiative indicates that across the Northeast, including Vermont, procedures, practices and policies are linked to disparities in the opportunities and quality of life for people from “marginalized” agricultural audiences, and in the resilience, viability and sustainability their farms.
There is a growing awareness of and interest in addressing these issues among Vermont agricultural service providers (ASPs), farmer organizations and farmer educators. In open-ended questions on intake forms and evaluation surveys conducted with over 240 program participants in 2023 and early 2024, farmers, farm managers, employees and ASPs consistently linked effective labor management, human risk management, and social justice issues to their farm productivity, profitability and quality of life, as well as to their ability to effectively implement climate adaptation, nutrient, soil and crop management, animal health, marketing, and food safety, strategies that contribute to agricultural sustainability in the region.
When asked about priorities for professional development in social sustainability topics, ASPs working in farm viability and business programs, farmworker support programs, horticultural production, produce safety, beginning farmer service programs identified the following topics: best practices in using interpretation and translation in agricultural education; greater understanding of labor issues (in particular challenges encountered by immigrant labor), and opportunities to explore DEIJ topics with peers and with knowledgeable facilitators.
This proposal builds on our 2021-2024 “Building Capacity to Support Diverse and New Farming Audiences” project to create new resources and engage agricultural service providers in learning opportunities that build their capacity to apply a DEI lens to farmer programming and to deliver effective labor management and human risk management referrals, education and education. Throughout the project we will invest time and energy to engage ASPs and farmer educators representing BIPOC, Queer and Women in Ag organizations as participants, facilitators and presenters, using channels such as the Uprooting Racism google group and the list of organizations compiled through the Northeast SARE DEIJ effort. We will also leverage existing relationships among project team members: Together, Holtzman, Peabody and Kivirist have deep and long-standing relationships with women in ag groups and organizations; Leslie has both professional and personal connections with Queer and BIPOC farming networks and organizations.
The project aims to build labor management capacity among ASPs who specialize in farm business, production, marketing, natural resource management, and food safety topics to provide relevant and appropriate basic information and referrals. Our focus will be on developing capacity to help farmers frame the right questions, address relevant considerations, evaluate options, and connect with networks and resources. Project team members Holtzman, Hendrickson, Kivirist and Peabody have been delivering successful, effective programming with farmers in this area since 2014, and bring both content and delivery format expertise.
A key and innovative feature of the project is that we will establish an Accountability Committee of farmers and agricultural service providers, who are people of color, and/or LGBTQ+ and/or women, whose role will be not just to "advise" but to hold project staff accountable to community interests and equity goals. We know that members of these communities are both willing and enthusiastic about engaging in this type of work based on the response to invitations to serve in a similar capacity for a research project led by team members Leslie and Holtzman. In committing to support that research, these individuals expressed the urgent importance of research, education, professional development and resource development that will uplift the voices and leadership of marginalized farming audiences within sustainable agriculture programs and build strong and reciprocal relationships between institutions and those communities. The project budget includes funding for their time and travel.
Team member Ike Leslie, who has used accountability councils in other research and community-based projects, will provide guidance and support for this component of the project. This component of the project will take time to develop, with activities in year one focusing primarily on building relationships with people and organizations representing under-served audiences, prior to establishing the committee’s membership and launching it at the end of Year 1. The committee will provide increasing levels of guidance and decision making in years 2 and 3, with the goal of it determining the direction, activities and focus of Vermont’s next 3-year project in 2027.
Project Team
Beth Holtzman - Vermont State Coordinator and project director. Holtzman's responsibilities include oversight of all project activities, including coordinating the project team, conducting outreach and recruitment activities, overseeing web and new resource development, developing and facilitating professional development sessions, and handling administrative components of the project. With team member Ike Leslie's support and guidance, Holtzman will also lead the relationship-building and establishment of the accountability committee, and facilitate and support evaluation planning and implementation.
Ike Leslie - University of Vermont Community Development Extension Assistant Professor in Food systems, brings experience and expertise in participatory governance of projects. They are deeply embedded in New England's communities of underserved farmers. Leslie also operates Magnetic Fields Farm in Athens Vermont which attracts and sustains multi-racial, queer farm community through food production, affordable housing and events. Leslie will support the project director in developing the accountability committee, including making introductions with individuals and organizations representing marginalized and underserved farming audiences. Please see Leslie's letter for more information on their planned contributions.
John Hendrickson - University of Wisconsin, farm viability specialist and former diversified vegetable farmer. John brings both personal experience and professional expertise in issues, challenges and strategies related to managing labor, personnel costs and efficiencies on diversified vegetable farms. He has worked with scores of small- and medium-sized vegetable farm operators on labor with projects across the country. See Hendrickson's letter of commitment for his planned contributions.
Lisa Kivirist - Renewing the Countryside, has led multiple, successful, award-winning initiatives and programs supporting women farmers, using peer learning and accountability circles to support women to implement changes in conservation and farm labor management. Please see Kivirist's letter of commitment for her planned contributions.
Pete Land, Tamarack Media, web development and design specialist. Please see Land's letter of commitment for his planned contributions.
Mary Peabody - University of Vermont Community Economic Development Emeritus Professor, brings subject matter expertise in on leadership, communication, management topics and meeting the needs of women and beginning farmers across cultural contexts. Please see Peabody's letter of commitment for her planned contributions.
Seth Wilner, works with farmers on a whole farm planning and labor management, most recently focusing on helping farmers develop leadership, management and communication skills to establish a farm culture and management practices to achieve their business and quality of life goals. Please see Wilner's letter of commitment for his planned contributions.
H2A consultants will contribute to content related to accessing, paying for, supervising, and retaining H2A workers.
Diversity, equity and inclusion consultants will content and reviewing informational materials and resources and curriculum plans.
Accountability Committee - will consist of ASPs, farm operators, and farm employees.
Evaluation consultant - The evaluation consultant will provide guidance to support the project director and accountability in planning and implementing a participatory and practical process for evaluating the multiple components of the project and balancing the needs of formative, process and summative assessment. Our goal is to engage an individual with knowledge of the growing fields of "equitable," "culturally responsive," and/or "transformative" evaluation.
Educational Approach
Engagement
Annually, the project will publish the schedule of educational events and invite all UVM Extension ASPs, along with partners from Vermont nonprofit organizations, community based organizations representing BIPOC and LGBTQ+, women-identifying communities and farmer educators to participate. The invitation will ask ASPs who are interested in at least one of the offerings to sign up to receive mailings from the project. These sign-ups will be used to create a project-specific mailing list, to collect baseline information about potential participants through which we can learn about their interests and challenges, and how they hope to use the learning in their programming. Submissions will be confidential and answers reported only in aggregate. However, we will ask for demographic information to help identify needs and priorities for under-served communities. Annually, the project will share aggregate information back with the group. In years 1 and 2, we will offer an online orientation, which will briefly explain program goals, and content and format of learning opportunities, and offer participants time to ask questions.
Learning
Using a flexible combination of in-person and distance education approaches, the project will provide information and education that will build knowledge, skill and confidence in addressing labor management, human risk and equity and justice topics within the context of the programs and services that the ASPs provide. The project will also develop and publish on the Farm Labor Dashboard site, new informational and technical assistance resources that ASPs can use in their programming or as referral resources for farmers. The goal is to build capacity to address labor among ASPs whose expertise is in other sustainable agriculture topic areas but who find themselves fielding questions about labor management topics, or observing that human and social factors are inhibiting the adoption of sustainable approaches in their field of expertise. These resources will address body mechanics for safety and productivity, injury prevention, workplace culture, wellness, communication, conflict management practices that can prevent burn-out and early exit, particularly among new and underserved farm audiences. Complementary online workshops, featuring (compensated) farmer panelists and content experts, will provide primers on: ways participants can use Farm Labor Dashboard tools and resources in consultations with clients; social justice issues immigrant farmers encounter in Vermont; and best practices for interpretation and translation services in farmer education. Working with a DEI consultant, the project will offer facilitated, safe spaces ("DEI Drop Ins") for participants to explore--in the context of agriculture, generally, and their organizations specifically -- the various ways individuals and groups experience exclusion, discrimination, disempowerment and oppression -- as well as power, privilege, inclusion and belonging.
Our approach relies on adult education strategies outlined in Sustainable Agriculture through Sustainable Learning, and Reaching Women in Agriculture, a Guide for Virtual Engagement. The program's flexible format will allow participants to focus on the topics that are most relevant to their professional and program needs. Throughout, we will follow a sequence of needs assessment, planning, delivery and evaluation activities. The planning phase will include confirming explicit learning goals, identifying learning activities that address those goals, assembling resource materials, and finalizing evaluation instruments. Educational delivery will primarily be done via distance methods (Zoom), will frequently include "reverse classroom" approaches, and emphasize activities in which participants apply information to their situation's needs and goals, rather than lecture formats.
Evaluation
While we plan to engage evaluation consultant to assist the project director and accountability committee in planning and implementing a participatory and practical process for evaluating the multiple components of the project, following are preliminary plans for addressing formative, process and summative assessment.
- We will collect general needs assessment information annually through the “RSVP” form, conduct pre-event questionnaires to assess baseline knowledge and skills and follow-up surveys, interviews and action plans to verify participants’ learning and to identify additional needs. When exploratory educational approaches are being used, evaluations may also ask for anonymous feedback about the format, structure, presenters/facilitators and usefulness of the session.
- We will conduct a final evaluation survey of participants in year 3 to learn about impacts on services and programming.
- We will track the total DEIJ funds spent in BIPOC communities and work with our evaluation consultant and NESARE staff to collect meaningful anonymous feedback from BIPOC communities.
- Additionally, there are funds in the budget to support additional/deeper learning for 10 participants. Funding will be based on an application that identifies a clear learning goal connected to their work with underserved audiences, and a pledge to report back to us on how they use what they learn.
Milestones
- Engagement. Annually in November, of the 240 Vermont ASPs who receive outreach about the project, 25 fill out a baseline interest form and 10 attend an online orientation session to learn about the project and learning opportunities. (We expect some individuals to submit interest forms in multiple years and to attend more than one orientation, so over the life of the project 50 unique individuals fill out the baseline interest forms and 25 attend orientation sessions.)
Status:
Accomplishments: - Learning. Annually by April 30, 10 ASPs participate in least three workshops or learning circles on labor management, human risk, or social justice topics. and exploring decision-support tools and resources on the Farm Labor Dashboard. As a result, they report gaining knowledge and confidence about sharing information about farmworker issues and challenges, labor management practices and tools, ergonomics, injury prevention, workplace culture, wellness, communication and/o conflict management practices.
Status:
Accomplishments: - Learning. Annually by June 30, 10 ASPs identify at least one change or action step they intend to pursue within their programming as a result of what they learned through workshops, learning circles, DEI-Drop-Ins and/or project resources and materials.
Status:
Accomplishments: - Engagement and Evaluation. Annually by June 30. 10 ASPs report using resources from the Farm Labor Dashboard either in their programs or to respond to a request from a farmer.
Status:
Accomplishments: - Engagement. By September 30, 2025, an accountability committee comprised of farmers and ASPs who identify as people of color and or LGBTQ+ or women has been established and held its first in-person meeting. The formation of the AC is both a reflection and result of a year-long relationship building process.
Status:
Accomplishments: - Learning & Evaluation. By June 30, 2027, 10 ASPs use project funds to pursue additional professional development relevant to their identified action step(s) and report on implementation, impacts, benefits, if any, on underserved/marginalized audiences and lessons learned. The Accountability Committee incorporates this information in their assessment and decision-making about future programming.
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Accomplishments: - Engagement/Evaluation: By September 30, 2026, the accountability committee and project director co-develop the project's final year work plan.
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Accomplishments: - Engagement/Evaluation: By April 30, 2027, 20 ASPs complete evaluation surveys to provide feedback on the impact of the project on their personal changes in knowledge, skill and confidence, and changes in program design, content, or partnerships. The project coordinator shares the information with the accountability committee, with participants, and uses the feedback in reporting.
Status:
Accomplishments: - Evaluation: By April 30, 2027, the Accountability Committee reviews feedback provided by BIPOC community members through the process co-developed by NESARE staff, the project's evaluation consultant and the project's accountability committee.
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Accomplishments: - Engagement/Evaluation: By May 30, 2027, the project director submits a 2027-2030 Vermont state work plan developed by and with the accountability committee.
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Accomplishments:
Performance Target Outcomes
SARE Outreach
Vermont SARE outreach work—conducted through presentations, exhibits, andsocial media—will continue to help Vermont’s farmers, agricultural service providers,policymakers, and others better understand SARE, its grants programs, and projectresults. Outreach efforts will reach at least 2525 people per year.
The following are planned outreach activities from October 2024 through September 2027:
Exhibits: We will collaborate with partners to bring Northeast SARE’s exhibitand materials to at least four of these annual events annually, provided that in-person conferences, with exhibit spaces are occurring. Selection of events will balance maintaining visibility/support at key sustainable agriculture events with reaching out to new audiences. Aggregated, these exhibits will be at events attended by at least 500 Vermonters per year, including approximately 425 farmers and 75 agricultural service providers and educators.) Possible events include:
- Vermont Vegetable and Berry Growers Association Annual Meeting (January)
- New England Livestock Consortium Conference (January)
- Vermont Association of Landscape and Nursery Growers (February)
- Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont Winter Conference (February);
- Vermont No-Till and Cover Crop Conference (February)
- Vermont Industrial Hemp Conference (February)
- Vermont Hop Conference (February)
- Vermont Grain Conference (March)
- As invited, meetings/workshops of BIPOC and LGBTQ+ and women in ag groups.
2. Inquiries & Referrals. The project coordinator will respond to inquiries about SARE and Northeast SARE Grant Programs, including referring applicants to relevant information, resources and SARE staff. Based on prior years' experience, the project coordinator will respond to approximately 25 individual, specific inquiries about SARE and its grant programs per year.
3. Outreach. The project coordinator will distribute announcements about Northeast SARE grant programs events and information resources via e-newsletters, listservs, and social media. In aggregate, these channels will reach an estimated 1,900 individuals, including approximately 150 agricultural service providers and 850 farmers.
4. Participate in SARE professional development programs (quarterly meetings).
5. Host the Fall 2024 SARE Fellows Tour (October 2024).
6. Serve as the state coordinator representative to the Northeast SARE Administrative Council through the end of my term in 2025.
7. Serve as a reviewer for at least one of SARE's grant programs in 2026 and 2027