A Bilingual Regenerative Agriculture and Farm O&M Training Program for Agricultural Professionals and Small Farmers

A growing number of socially-disadvantaged Latine migrants and farmworkers are making the transition to operating their own farms. But Latine owned-and operated small farms (less than 50 acres) face serious economic and social challenges to survival and success (Ostrom, Cha & Flores, 2010).   They often lack the college education, resources, management and financial skills, and logistical knowledge required to take advantage of the technical and other assistance available from public agencies, educational institutions and service organizations (Calo, 2018). They may not speak or read English, face challenges in dealing with access to state and federal agricultural support programs, especially in terms of paperwork and bureaucratic requirements. 

Most curricula and training programs for agricultural professionals do not address the multiple challenges facing Latine farmers or integrate across the numerous skill sets and practices that address “farming as a business.”  For example, SARE project WPDP 19-25, “Growing Successful Agricultural Businesses” did not link the practical requirements of farming with the business side.  Project WPDP 24-009, “Expanding Agricultural Professionals Knowledge,” is focused on the training needs of the grant recipient’s staff.  Project PDP 20-009, “Exposing Ag Professionals to New and Innovative Small Farm Tools,” is intended to encourage tool-sharing but assumes that farmers can self-organize. WPDP 23-101, “Getting Comfortable in the Weeds-How to Serve California Agriculture,” is modeled largely on informing educators and providers how to serve small farmers without consulting them directly. WPDP 23-009, “Enhancing Farmer-to-Farmer Education for Farm Sustainability and Community Resilience,” does not appear to address the really-existing business environment in which small farms must operate.  Finally, WSARE’s Teaching and Learning Best Practices Toolkit (Lamm & Lamm, 2023) draws largely on the literature about learning but incorporates no actual instructional experience

This project will create a bilingual training program for agricultural professionals to teach and Spanish-speaking farmers to learn how to implement practices of regenerative and sustainable agriculture as well as the needs and practices of farm operations, management and business (accounting, financing, recordkeeping, branding, marketing, distribution, etc.). Instruction and learning will emphasize in-the-field learning, activities and peer-to-peer exchange as a preferred pedagogical approach, respecting farmers’ knowledge and experiences in starting and running their operations.

This project builds on activities and results from 3 years (2021-24) of bilingual workshops (with partial funding from WSARE) on regenerative agriculture and farm management conducted by SSRF and its partners for approximately 60 Latine operators of small farms in Santa Clara, San Benito, Monterey and Santa Cruz counties in California. These workshops were initially taught with a standard classroom pedagogic model, including both lecture-presentations and hands-on applications but pivoted to applied activities and practices, especially in the field. We found that farmer workshop participants knew how to farm (a number were ALBA graduates) but they had not learned how to farm as a “business.”  It is this gap in their knowledge and practice that the training curriculum is intended to address.