Progress report for SPDP24-032
Project Information
This project resulted in the development and support of 8 Legal Ecosystem Fellows who delivered at least 6 farm law workshops in the Southern region on legal issues of importance to sustainable producers. The Legal Ecosystem Fellows were equipped with additional resources that empower the Fellow to continue supporting producers who attend the workshops. As a result, 180 farmers attending the 6 workshops (estimated 30 attendees each) have more resilient stable businesses and improved quality of life.
We achieved these outcomes by hosting a Legal Ecosystem Fellowship- a train-the-trainer program for Extension educators, farm education nonprofit staff, farm business service providers, and post-secondary instructors to lead farm law workshops locally. The training curriculum emphasizes risk-reducing action steps and accurate, clear legal explanations. The program also trains (and requires) Fellows to use peer-to-peer training techniques and incorporate local producers in their presentations.
This project was piloted in the North Central region in 2023. This was our opportunity to improve and adapt the program for Southern sustainable agriculture communities. As a nonprofit devoted exclusively to teaching agricultural communities farm law, we are deeply skilled in creating educational materials that accommodate all state-specific nuances that are necessary to the curricular goals. Through our pilot program, we proved that it is safe and effective to train laypersons in legal matters without violating any rules on practicing law.
The Fellows trained through this project:
- Improved their skills, tools, frameworks, and practice for increasing legal resilience in their agricultural community.
- Acquired confidence in delivering up to 5 educational presentations (from 5 templates) that help farmers take specific, risk-reducing action steps, without overstepping any bounds of their position as non-attorneys or creating additional risk for farmers and ranchers.
- Acquired confidence in creating excellent presentations that are accurate, and motivate farmers to undertake 1 or 2 specific risk-reducing actions while being mindful of the varied relationships disadvantaged/underrepresented community members may have with legal systems.
- Learned to incorporate farmer-to-farmer learning and peer engagement around legal issues in a presentation environment.
The Fellows used their learning to:
- Deliver 6 educational presentations or workshops (at conferences, etc.) that empowered 180 farmers to take specific risk-reducing action steps.
- The target audience are direct-to-consumer operations including CSAs, U-picks, those selling at farmers' markets or doing other direct marketing as well as operations using organic methods. These folks have unique legal concerns not necessarily experienced by their conventional peers.
- In past programming, these presentations attract 75% female participants and 30-50% underrepresented audiences overall, as these audiences have less access to traditional legal services as compared to their male and white farmer peers. We were not able to collect demographic information for this project's presentations
We estimate the 180 farmers attending the Fellows’ programming a) Increased their knowledge of the subject matter (business structures, farm employment law, liability and insurance, farmland leasing, and food safety), b) Formed an intention to adopt the specific risk-reducing action step(s) presented and c) Gained confidence in their ability to undertake the action in the near term although could not adequately collect that information across fellow's programs.
Education
Below are the activities of the project in order of occurrence:
- Adapt Legal Ecosystem Fellowship curriculum to the Southern Region. The training curriculum builds motivation and shared purpose around farm law education specific to farm laws in the Southern states, as well as train participants to deliver 5 specific workshops through PowerPoint decks, scripts, activities, and means to integrate producers themselves into the program delivery.
- Create a resource toolkit for Fellows to distribute as part of their presentations and in workshop follow-up: Generate handouts of popular Farm Commons resources on business structures, land leasing, employment law, insurance, and food safety liability for Fellows’ use.
- Create support structure for housing, distributing, and reviewing Leader training materials.
- Open application to the Legal Ecosystem Fellowship to our 20+ members in the Southern region who have taken Guiding Resilience, using a process that assesses the applicant’s involvement in farm law education, ability to reach producers region-wide with an emphasis on outreach to underserved producers, and willingness to support peer-to-peer aspects of learning.
- Select 8 Fellows from the applicant pool for participation utilizing an equity-based selection process, prioritizing diversity, equity, and inclusion in the selected cohort as well as the communities of producers they serve.
- Carry out the Legal Ecosystem Fellowship program with both members of the Fellowship and with the supporting mentor farmers. The Fellows convened virtually for six 2-hour training meetings over the course of the Fellowship, in addition to offline homework assignments and preparatory work.
- Support cohort members in securing workshop opportunities, adapting the program materials to their local context, and delivering their workshops with producers. We review presentations before delivery to spot any legal risks or inaccuracies.
- Follow up with cohort members about their experience delivering workshops and adapt the program curriculum going forward.
Below are the methods we used to accomplish the project’s objectives:
- The Legal Ecosystem Fellowship curriculum: trained 8 agriculture professionals to deliver up to 4 specific farm law workshops in their communities to groups of at least 30 producers at a time. The workshop topics are:
- Farm Business Structure Basics
- Farm Employment Law Basics
- Compassionate Communication: Putting legal best practices into practice
- Liability and Insurance
- Land Leasing Legal Basics
The curriculum includes 5 training modules that cover a) building a common purpose, b) understanding the value, risks, and opportunities in legal education, c) providing Leaders with all the training necessary to confidently deliver the 5 workshops above in their community, and d) developing an understanding of how diverse audiences come to legal education and how to meet the needs of underserved audiences. A 6th training module provides presentation support as Fellows prepare to deliver one of the 5 presentation topics in a local/regional workshop. Fellows will be provided with a teacher’s manual, template agendas, and survey forms, activity instructions, and a detailed producer co-presenter handbook that teaches Fellows why and how to train a local producer to co-present the program.
- Handout resources: These will be adapted from our popular legal guides on business structures, land leasing, employment law, food safety liability, and insurance for Fellows’ use, adapted for a new, more accessible framework to complement the 5 workshop curriculums.
Education & Outreach Initiatives
To teach 8 individuals to deliver 5 different farm law training modules to farmers in their communities.
This is a train-the-trainer program for Extension educators, farm education nonprofit staff, farm business service providers, and post-secondary instructors to lead farm law workshops locally. The training curriculum emphasizes helping farmers take risk-reducing action steps by providing accurate, clear legal explanations. The program also trains Fellows to use peer-to-peer training techniques and incorporate local producers in their presentations as co-presenters.
The training event was conducted as 6 2-hour training sessions across 2 months of time. The curriculum includes 5 training modules that cover a) building a common purpose, b) understanding the value, risks, and opportunities in legal education, c) providing Leaders with all the training necessary to confidently deliver the 5 workshops above in their community, and d) developing an understanding of how diverse audiences come to legal education and how to meet the needs of underserved audiences. A 6th training module provides presentation support as Fellows prepare to deliver one of the 5 presentation topics in a local/regional workshop.
Fellows were provided with a teacher’s manual, template agendas, and survey forms, activity instructions, and a detailed producer co-presenter handbook that teaches Fellows why and how to train a local producer to co-present the program.