Project Overview
Commodities
Practices
- Education and Training: farmer to farmer, networking, participatory research, workshop
- Farm Business Management: agricultural finance, business planning, farm succession, financial management, land access
- Sustainable Communities: analysis of personal/family life, community planning, food access and security, public policy
Proposal summary:
The farm operator community in New York State is rapidly aging. In 2017, 56% of the New York State producers were over 55 years old. By 2022, that percentage has grown to 60% (Ag Census, 2022).
Farm succession requires careful planning to meet the needs of both the aging farmers, and beginning (successor) farmers, and could have far-reaching benefits for the parties involved
This 3-year project initiates with exploratory farmer-to-farmer interviews, guided by the work of Blum-Evitts (2022). Based on the interviews, the project leader will develop surveys to identify the five biggest barriers towards successful farm transition by both farmer groups.
The surveys will be disseminated to the Eastern New York farming community with help of the project collaborators: Liz Higgins (Cornell ENCHP), Marci Craig (NOFA NY), Kate Anstreicher (Glynwood), and Caroline Myran (Schoharie County Agricultural Development Specialist).
In year 2, the project leader will do literature research towards overcoming those barriers and complement this research with stakeholder interviews for each of the researched topics.
In the third year, the project leader will combine the identified farm succession barriers, and possible solutions to overcome those barriers as found in the literature research to recommendations for both groups of farmers.
Outreach for this project will be realized through 3 workshops annually as part of meetings already organized by the project collaborators (for a total of 9 workshops), with emphasis on introducing the concept of farm succession to the Eastern New York farming community in a farmer-to-farmer format.
Project objectives from proposal:
Objective 1a. Explore New York farmer attitudes towards farm succession through interviews
We will conduct 12 interviews on the issue of farm succession. All interviews will take place in the first 3 months of this project.
Interviews will result in 2 relevant surveys on the topic of farm succession in month 4 of this project.
Objective 1b. Explore New York farmer attitudes towards farm succession through electronic surveys to identify most important barriers
This project aims to identify farm succession barriers both from the perspective of the aging farmers, as well as the beginning farmers through electronic surveys data collection and analysis of this data in months 5-6.
The goal is to receive 100 completed surveys from NYS aging farmers, and 100 completed surveys from beginning (successor) farmers, reached through the networks of the project collaborators.
Analysis of the survey results will identify and rank the most important barriers towards farm succession in the surveyed group.
Objective 2: Resolve five of the most important barriers in farm succession as identified by the New York farming community in the surveys, through literature research and stakeholder interviews.
Based on the year 1 survey outcomes, the project leader will do literature research on the 5 most important barriers to farm succession as identified by the farmers.
The objective of the research on each of the 5 topics will be to come to solutions, based on previous research, or established best practices.
To verify the feasibility of solutions found, the project leader will interview 5 stakeholders for each of the researched topics.
This literature research and stakeholder interviews will take place in year 2 of this project.
Objective 3: Create farmer-to-farmer recommendations for best practices towards farm transition based on the 5 identified barriers, and possible solutions.
Objective 4: Provide farmer-to-farmer education to create awareness of the importance of creating farm succession plans through interviews, surveys, and conference workshops in project years 1, 2, and 3.
The project leader will commit to 3 workshops in each of the project years with assistance of the technical advisors, and project collaborators in a farmer-to-farmer format, with the objective to raise awareness of the importance of planning for farm succession. The project goal is to reach at least 400 farmers through interviews, surveys, and workshops.