Improving Viability for Small Farms Operated by Underserved Producers through Scaled Market Connections and Cooperative Sales

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Commodities

• Vegetables: beans, brussel sprouts, cabbages, carrots, eggplant, garlic, greens (leafy), greens (lettuces), leeks, okra, onions, peas (culinary), peppers, radishes (culinary), sweet corn, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, turnips

Practices

• Crop Production: conservation tillage, cover crops, crop rotation, water management
• Education and Training: technical assistance, workshop
• Farm Business Management: apprentice/intern training, community-supported agriculture, farm-to-institution, farm-to-restaurant, farmers' markets/farm stands, land access
• Pest Management: field monitoring/scouting, physical control, traps
• Sustainable Communities: partnerships

In Harmony Farm and seven farm partners (FP), each with one-to-five-acre parcels, will implement the project. The effort is focused on a combination of farmer education/skill building to support marketing, raising awareness of the value of locally sourced, sustainably produced food (LSF) with institutional consumers, and creating a digital point of sale to connect farmers and institutional consumers.

Efforts address multiple community needs, including:

• Limited access to urban plots of land, minimal opportunities to scale, and inaccessible business support often prevent refugee farmers from expanding their businesses. IHF provides larger parcels, business support to formalize operations, and instruction in regenerative agriculture.
• Market development for larger purchases is necessary to support scaled production. Aside from farm-to-table restaurants, there are limited institutional markets for LSF resulting in most refugee farmers making direct-to-consumer sales – a strategy that can’t stand alone as they scale. This project will raise awareness of the value of sustainable production, creating institutional demand to balance farmers’ direct-to-consumer efforts.
• Connecting institutional buyers to larger-scale sources of LSF using an adapted, digital point of sale that allows institutions to identify needs and farmers to make evidence-based planning decisions to meet those demands.

IHF will partner with seven small, beginning farm businesses operated by historically underserved producers to teach farmers how to:

• Implement sustainable agricultural practices.
• Market their harvest through cooperative, online presales.
• Use presales as an effective strategy to support efficient crop planting resulting in environmentally, socially, and financially sustainable production.

IHF will complete outreach to at least 100 institutional consumers to:

• Demonstrate the value of sustainable agricultural production.
• Connect institutional consumers to points of purchase for LSF.
• Increase consumer access to and purchase of LSF for institutions and the people they serve.