Community Agriculture and Food Systems Development Certification Program

Community Agriculture and Food Systems Development Certification Program

Summary

A growing number of communities are recognizing the important contributions food and agriculture make to the quality of life. With this in mind, the “Growing Home Certification Program” was implemented as a pilot training program designed to develop the knowledge and skills of community development professionals (including agriculture development specialists, Extension educators, economic developers, planners, local government officials), and other community leaders, to strengthen agriculture and their communities through innovative food agriculture-based activities.

The two year program consisted of a distance learning component, designed to engage program participants primarily in their offices and homes (permitting them to remain in the contexts where they pursue food and ag-based community development) and a face-to-face component – six, two-day class meetings. During year one, participants completed three distance-learning modules, each consisting of 4 units: Social, Political and Economic Considerations (Module I); Growing Home Strategies (Module II); Planning and Organizing in Your Community (Module III). Participants were introduced to each module through a class lecture and field trip held prior to the beginning of each module. The modules included readings, discussion questions, on-line interactive discussions and a paper. The Module III paper, significantly longer than the first two, required participants to integrate the materials covered during all three modules into a proposal for a locally-based project designed to strengthen food, agriculture, and community. These proposals were reviewed by peer participants and instructors, revised, and resubmitted for a final instructor review. Proposals that met the criteria of the request for proposals were awarded $1,000 in SARE funds for implementation. Upon completion of the projects in Spring 2005, participants will submit final project reports and attend a final class meeting, where they will make project presentations and discuss lessons learned throughout the development and implementation of their projects.

Throughout the program, emphasis has been placed on engaging participants in ways which (1) incorporates their current work into the training and (2) supports that work through the training.

Objectives/Performance Targets

Our proposed objectives for this project include having at least 15 of 20 enrolled participants (1) be able to articulate how contemporary food and agriculture systems impact the community/communities in which they work; (2) understand the process of community-based food and agriculture systems development enough to be able to identify strategies and articulate a clear and coherent plan for implementing these strategies in their communities; and (3) work with a community-based team to develop and implement a local food and agriculture-based development project.

Accomplishments/Milestones

As we near the end of the Growing Home Certification Program project, we have progressed through the first five of seven milestones and achieved the first of three performance targets as planned. We have also achieved the sixth milestone and second performance target, though with three less participants than planned (12 vs.15) and, with these twelve participants, are scheduled to reach our seventh milestone and complete our final performance target in March 2005. Though somewhat disappointed by the number of participants that withdrew from the program, we are, overall, pleased with all that has been accomplished through the project, including: (1) the development of the Growing Home training program, which we plan to modify and offer on a regular basis; (2) the professional advancement of 15 participants who completed the training program; (3) the development and implementation of 12 community-based projects (still in progress); and (4) professional relationships that, forged through the Growing Home Certification Program, have resulted in ag-development collaborations above and beyond those developed within the program.

The first milestone of the project (enrolling 20 participants) was met when we selected 21 participants, from a pool of strong candidates working on ag development throughout the Northeast, and all 21 submitted a notice of intent to participate in the program. Our second milestone (20 participants complete the first module) was also met, when only one of 21 participants failed to submit the Module I paper, withdrawing from the program due to personal commitments shortly thereafter. Our third milestone challenged us to have 19 participants complete Module II. We fell short of this milestone by 2, when 17 of the 20 continuing participants completed Module II. Two of the three participants who did not complete Module II made arrangements to submit delayed assignments, but did not follow through, and later also withdrew from the program citing personal reasons.

Over the course of Module I and II, it became apparent that the reading and discussion assignments were requiring more time than anticipated by instructors and participants. Consequently, we extended assignment deadlines, ultimately expanding the time allotted for each unit of the Modules from one week to two weeks. A second way in which we modified the project relates to milestones four (17 participants complete module III and Year I final paper) and five (15 participants submit a Year II community-based project proposal). After developing the curriculum, we realized that there was considerable overlap between the Module III final paper, Year I final paper, and Year II project proposal assignments we had planned in the proposal. Program participants were required to write a single, comprehensive paper in which aspects of each of the three assignments were integrated rather than three separate assignments. Thus, participants wrote a proposal that brought together, in an applied and theoretical way, what they had learned in the three modules and what they were proposing to do in their Year II project.

Although the assignments for milestones four and five were combined, they were no less rigorous as one than as three, and they were reached: 17 participants completed Module III and 16 participants were scheduled to submit a Year II proposal in January. On the eve of the Year II proposal due date, however, two additional participants dropped out of the program, one due to new job responsibilities and a second explaining that the program was really too much, given current job responsibilities. We, thus, started the second year of the program with 15 participants, only 13 of which ended up submitting Year II project proposals. One of the fifteen participants still with the program at the beginning of Year II withdrew from the program shortly thereafter due to a promotion and two were subsequently cut from the program, having not completed Year I assignments for which they had been given lengthy extensions.

With only 12 of 21 participants revising and submitting a Year II project proposal and implementing their projects, we fell short of meeting our sixth and seventh milestone participation goals by three participants. While the loss of 9 of 21 participants is disappointing, we have studied the reasons participants gave for withdrawing from the program and have learned several important lessons from their departures, all of which are discussed in the “Impacts and Contributions/Outcomes” section below.

At the same time, all twelve of the participants who submitted Year II project proposals were awarded $1000 to support the implementation of their projects. Projects were initiated in March 2004 and have been developed with support from the Growing Home program coordinator and instructors through monthly check-ins and a class meeting in September 2004. These community-based projects include: the development of a food bank guide to local food procurement; the incorporation of ag development into a regional comprehensive plan; the development of a cooperative meat processing endeavor; an agriculture ambassador program; an urban horticulture program; a farm-to-restaurant distribution program; the development of a regional meat production, processing, and distribution cluster; the development of a guide to applying “triple bottom line” theory to agriculture development initiatives; a project to incorporate agriculture into a watershed tourism campaign; an annual agriculture leadership conference; the development of a farmers’ market in a low-income, inner-city, business district; and a farmland preservation effort consisting of farm-based diversification consultation.

Although the projects were planned to be completed within a six month time frame, in practice they have moved more slowly, prompting us to request and be granted a project extension. In addition to the time involved in coordinating a truly community-based effort (monthly check-ins with each participant have focused on the process of community development, particularly the time and energy involved in building and sustaining support and buy-in for these projects), project implementation has been frustrated by delays in the disbursement of the $1000 award in support of each participant’s Year II project. While the glitches that delayed the funds disbursement have been worked out and participants proceeded with their projects as scheduled, they did not begin receiving funds until October 2004. Projects are currently scheduled to be completed no later than April 31, 2005, with final project reports due February 11th 2005. The final meeting of the program will be held March 3rd and 4th, at which time participants will summarize the results of their project as well as lessons learned. The final project reports will be shared with SARE and made available to others, as case studies, through the Community, Food, and Agriculture Program’s website.

Impacts and Contributions/Outcomes

Although the final impacts of this project will not be measured until the locally-based projects and overall program evaluations are completed, there is evidence that the Growing Home Certification Program is building the capacity of agriculture developers, thus meeting its performance targets:

(1) Favorable responses to written and oral evaluations of the program, and the quality of assignments completed, indicate that the Program has provided participants with (a) a theoretical understanding of the work they have been pursuing for a long time, (b) a better understanding of food and agriculture-based development strategies and community-based development processes, ©) a framework for planning a food and agriculture-based community development project; and (d) valuable networking opportunities with knowledgeable peers.

(2) Monthly check-ins and in-person project updates speak to the ways in which the program has supported the development and implementation of community-based projects and to the ways the projects are, in turn, benefitting communities. Some participants have even encouraged us to think of the Growing Home Certification program as an ag development “incubator.”

(3) Anecdotal evidence speaks to multiple spin-off impacts that are the result of bringing regional ag developers together through Growing Home. During Year II project updates, participants repeatedly referenced ways they were engaging their Growing Home peers in the implementation of other ag development projects with which they were involved.

(4) In addition to the impacts on program participants and their ability to strengthen agriculture and communities, the program has very much served its purpose as a pilot project – as educators, we have learned a great deal about the needs of a training program designed to simultaneously support and integrate ongoing work and professional development goals.

As a result of the feedback provided by participants over the last two years, we have learned the following lessons, which we are taking into consideration as we prepare for the next Growing Home program:

First, as implemented the program was much more suited to professionals for whom ag development is a primary responsibility than for those for whom it is either a minor part of their overall job or for whom it is a personal passion. With the exception of one of the nine participants (who withdrew due to new job commitments), food and ag-based community development was not a primary job responsibility, but either a small part of their professional portfolio or a volunteer activity. On the other hand, ag development is a primary responsibility of nine of the twelve participants who are scheduled to complete the program this Spring. On a related note, although applicants were encouraged to have their employers support for their participation in the program, those who completed the program seemed to have a greater level of employer support than those who did not. For example, they could devote work time to Growing Home without having to make it up at another time.

Second, while a regional approach to this training is of value, the Northeast may be too big of a region within which to fully capture that value. Even though the program was designed to support professionals in their localities, with limited travel, even six, in-person meetings over two years can be substantial burden for participants required to travel eight hours one way. All but two of the nine who left the program had to travel five to nine hours to attend the meetings, even when meetings were held in different locations throughout New York State.

Third, while we intentionally planned the program over two years to provide prolonged, ongoing support, two years may simply be too long to commit to the program as it is currently designed. At least four participants either changed careers or were promoted to positions that required a greater commitment than was required of them at the beginning of the program and five experienced personal crises that required time away from the program. While our evaluations demonstrate that the educational and professional support components of the program are highly valued, given the time and extensive commitment required by the program, participants may be more inclined to see it to the end if doing so results in credits towards a professional degree rather than a only certificate of completion.

As a result of these lessons, support from program participants, and multiple inquiries from individuals who want to be a part of the program in the future, we will be exploring ways to implement the Growing Home Program differently for different audiences in the future. Initial ideas include incorporating the Growing Home Program into advanced professional degree programs, making it into a one year certificate program, and modifying the distance learning component so that it is less intense. In conclusion, our experience in implementing the Growing Home Certification Program has, thus far, demonstrated a need for this type of training and the value of providing it, prompting plans to modify and implement the program in the future.

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