Empowering Southern Sustainable Farmers with Proactive, Community-centered Farm Law Education, Resources, and Networks

View the project final report

Commodities

Practices

• Farm Business Management: agricultural finance, apprentice/intern training, community-supported agriculture, farm succession, financial management, labor/employment, new enterprise development, risk management, value added
• Sustainable Communities: quality of life

Business formation, sales contracts, farmland leases, loans, employment law regulations, food safety liability, crop insurance, liability for slips or falls, partnership negotiations, succession and more plague farmers and ranchers during the life cycle of the farm. Distracting them from their core work and draining the farm of resources, these issues affect quality of life and destabilize our innovative direct to consumer and organic farms. This project changes that. By creating an ecosystem of support, farmers are empowered to make the risk reducing changes that they want for their business.

The starting point is our Discovering Resilience Workshop curriculum which empowers producers with the knowledge, resources, and communication skills to take 10 specific risk-reducing action steps. Our workshops leverage peer-to-peer support as farmers identify and instigate solutions to business law needs like insurance, written leases, zoning code compliance, and employment rules, to name a few. The project begins with the project team reviewing needs and legal challenges for Georgia producers. Then, Farm Commons’ attorney experts research Georgia law and adapt the curriculum to speak to regional challenges focused on employment issues. Next, we build in mechanisms for farmers to support peers by sharing their own wisdom and perspective on the law. Our curriculum emphasizes creativity, relationships, and communication as keys to proactively addressing legal complications, which is a far more proactive and successful approach than teaching detailed legal minutiae.

We build on this base to ensure the project meets the diverse needs of Georgia producers. An online workshop allows us to reach producers who perhaps have health issues, transportation issues, or family obligations. It also insulates the project from the risks of our current global pandemic. We also develop Georgia-specific farm employment law resources.

We don’t stop at education. We host follow up sessions help participants dig in deep on the action steps they choose for their farm. By bringing producers together to share their experiences, we create a space for brainstorming around shared challenges and for collective action to eliminate persistent barriers.

By proactively addressing legal issues, we can prevent the failure of farm businesses due to inadequate insurance, partner disputes, lost sales contracts, lost farmland access, unpredictable debt and more, thus improving quality of life for farmers. This project also improves profitability by reducing the likelihood of expensive legal complications, while ensuring sustainable farm businesses thrive, thus improving environmental quality and building more just food system.

Objectives:

1. Host 2 Discovering Resilience workshops, both online. One course was held in a “live” environment with farmers meeting and talking to each other in online meetings. The second course was self-paced, with farmers engaging in learning material on their own time and collaborating in a Q&A platform. 95 farmers total attended the workshops.
2. Host 2 workshop follow up sessions to share challenges in meeting farmers’ action plans and instigate action to resolve them.
3. Research, write, and distribute a resource on Georgia-specific laws, given to all workshop participants, and distributed to an additional 18

Short Term Outcomes:

4. 110 farmers learned the 10 legal best management practices across 5 subjects including employment law, diversification, business structures, land matters, and liability/insurance. This is 97% of the total 113 farmers this project reached.
5. 72 farmers gained at least one of 5 essential legal risk reducing skills including analyzing insurance needs, discussing leasing terms, identifying diversification liability risks, assessing the value of workers’ compensation, and selecting an appropriate business structure for their goal. This is 73% of the 95 who registered for the workshop due to no show rates.
6. 75 farmers became more legally resilient by completing or planning the implementation of at least 3 of the 10 legal best management practices. This is 79% of the 95 farmers reached in the workshop.
7. 71 farmers felt more empowered to recognize and address legal risk on their operations and within their community. This is 63% of farmers reached through the project as a whole, consistent with past experience.

Long Term Outcomes

1. Farms with the greatest legal risk vulnerability (direct to consumer, organic, and agritourism-based operations) become stronger and more resilient.
2. Sustainable farms approach risk management confidently, with legal background information and knowledge of the resources and opportunities available to them.
3. Sustainable farmers establish connections to peers as they define and achieve their risk management goals, all of which sustain beyond the life of this project.