Peer-to-Near Peer Mentorship for Farmers in Prince George's County

Commodities

Practices

Too often, aspiring farmers cannot picture themselves actually farming, because there are few successful farmers they can model themselves after. In contrast, in Prince George's County where ECO City Farms' pioneered farming, 90% of the population have similar demographic characteristics that are relatable, improving the model.

Our project's goal is to find the best pathway for farms and farmers to achieve their farming dreams of providing food for their communities. We do so by intentionally partnering the new farmers (who launched their farms at ECO's Farm Incubator two years ago) with more senior how were participants in ECO's beginning farmer training program, to work and learn together. It is our hypothesis and expectation that a significant leap in motivation, inspiration and learning will occur for both parties through the collaboration- thereby enhancing their potential for success.

Our innovative proposal responds to the epidemic of diet-related diseases that is not accidental, but the result of the excessive availability of cheap processed food. There is also a lack of availability of fresh, nutritious food. The Capital Area Food Bank reports that in 2024 more than 50% of County's residents are food insecure. Because the consumption of healthy food is the best route to improved health outcomes, ECO showcases small scale farming's potential to enhance food security and community health.

Our project's goal is to find the best pathway for Historically Underserved (HU) farmers to achieve their farming dreams and provide food for their communities. ECO launched its Urban Farm Incubator (UFI) in 2023, providing ½ acre of land, farm infrastructure and marketing training to HU graduates of Beginning Farmer Training Programs (at ECO or elsewhere). Currently at UFI there are 10 entrepreneurial farming enterprises, 90% of whom identify as HU farmers of color. Through the recruitment, training and support of new farmers, we also discover more about the gaps in experience and other barriers HU farmers face in becoming practicing production farmers. During their first two years, most of these new businesses realized that they did not know-how to recruit, hire or manage the farm-hand assistance they required, and were unable to actually pay critical helpers a subsistence wage.

We simultaneously learned that some of our most promising aspiring farmers are unable to gain the experience at the scale they require to test out their newly acquired knowledge and skills. With this proposal, we seek to improve and redesign our preliminary training so that our trainees can more easily make the leap to successful production farming. What appears to be missing from our model is sufficient experiential, hands-on learning required of all apprentices and journeymen hoping to become masters. Far too many of our HU trainees have never been accorded the opportunity to work closely with a production farmer to practice and acquire needed skills. However, for HU farmers, learning from a conventional farmer often presents more problems than it solves, as there are cultural and other nuances that make for misunderstandings and suspicions. Instead, we find that our peer to near-peer training approach is more effective. In recent years, our Beginning Farmer Program (BFP) staff have also emerged from the ranks of our BFP graduates, only slightly more advanced than our trainees. In fact, three of the proposed support staff for this project are ECO employees who have faced, and overcome, many of the challenges and obstacles confronted by our beginner trainees less than five years ago.

This innovative proposal seeks to marry ECO's two signature offerings for mutual benefit and growth, and to research and track the impacts and results. In sum, we propose to match a number of our BFP trainees with UFI farmers, creating a new layer of mentee, mentor relationship for the program, supplementing the BFP by encouraging and incentivizing aspiring farmer trainees to work on farms alongside the UFI farmers.

It is our hypothesis and expectation that a significant leap in motivation, inspiration and learning will occur for both parties through the collaboration- thereby enhancing their potential for success. We anticipate that UFI farmers will acquire needed management skills while sharing their business knowledge, plans and practice with the trainees, and that the trainees will acquire valuable hands-on experience at a scale they require, while providing the new farmer with extra sets of hands and renewed enthusiasm for the work. In this way we can optimize the chances for success of the HU farmers already launching their businesses at the UFI by providing them with the inspired and motivated assistance of newly trained HU farmer trainees who look to them as near-peer mentors and allies.

For year one of our work plan, starting in June of 2025, we will select 4 trainees from the cadre of beginning farmer trainees who we began to train in January of 2025. Prior to being matched with UFI mentors, the trainees enrolled in the farmer-led 10 class session BFT program will focus on farming topics related to commercial production. Staff will select the beginning farmers who will move on to the UFI mentorship as well as recruit the UFI Farmer mentors. Mentees will be matched with mentors based on common interests and goals, such as traditional food ways, herbs, flowers, or production techniques. For this arrangement, working agreements and schedules will be established. From June to October the trainees will work on average 8 hrs/week, totaling 160 hours. Supplemental workshops and farm tours will be offered throughout the season. Staff will conduct regular check-ins to ensure a mutually productive relationship between the mentee-mentor as well as a final comprehensive assessment at the end of the term. Once the pilot is launched and we have learned our lessons, we propose to bring 2 additional new cadres of beginning farmers together with our entrepreneurial farmers at the incubator, starting with the 2026 class recruited at the end of 2025. The resources of the HUF grant will be used to (1) provide stipends for new farmer trainees to work as farm-hands for and with the incubator farmers, (2) compensate the incubator farmers for instructing and mentoring the trainees, (3) fund a ½ time project coordinator to facilitate and evaluate, the teaching and learning processes involved, and (4) support the 2026 and 2027 foundational beginning farmer training.

Objectives

• Reduce barriers for 18-20 HU farmer trainees to gain the hands-on farming experience required to become competent and confident urban production farmers
• Support at least 6-10 HU UFI farmers to achieve their business goals through capable and motivated hands-on mentee assistance
• 18 HU farmer trainees are able to better understand and define their farming goals based on UFI mentor experience
• 13 HU farmer trainees find employment or other opportunities to continue farming beyond program through mutually supportive network and farm employment opportunities
• Support PGC HU farmer peer-to-near-peer learning network

Timeline and Activities