Building Sustainable Farm Resiliency through Farmer-Centered Business Solutions

Commodities

Practices

• Education and Training: farmer to farmer
• Farm Business Management: business planning
• Sustainable Communities: local and regional food systems

In the PNW, organizations like
Rogue Farm Corps, Headwaters Incubator Farm, and Extension
programs offer instruction in sustainable farming. However, no
organization comprehensively addresses the business decisions
needed to scale up small agricultural enterprises. Our Coalition
of 200+ farmers who practice small-scale, diversified farming,
consistently report an absence of resources to help them make
critical business decisions. Common examples include
understanding laws around hiring labor, providing employee
benefits, and finding financial and legal professionals that
understand the unique challenges of diversified,
direct-to-consumer agriculture.

In 2022, these farms generated
$24 million in locally consumed food, benefiting our communities
and local economy. Yet, this intensive farming often leads to
high farmer burnout, with over half of them closing within 6
years. Key reasons include job dissatisfaction, managing too much
with limited resources, and handling administrative tasks beyond
their expertise. Our project aims to address these challenges and
promote farm business sustainability. 

This project enhances the farming
community quality of life by 1) identifying farmers’ critical
business needs and existing gaps, 2) developing resources and
solutions to address those needs, 3) establishing a peer-to-peer
network to communicate experiences and share best practices, and
4) facilitating opportunities for farmers to obtain and implement
these solutions. By strengthening the business capabilities of
PNW farmers, the number of sustainable farms thriving beyond 6
years of operation will increase, promoting biome stewardship:
"Our environmentally sensitive and direct to consumer farmers are
only sustainable if they can keep running their farm businesses
year after year."
(SARE grant
ONC23-118)

Through participation in the
peer-to-peer communication framework and access to our resource
database, we aim to achieve specific outcomes enhancing farmers'
quality of life, bolstering their financial resilience, and
fostering the growth of small sustainable farms for responsible
land stewardship. As emphasized in SARE grant project ONC23-118,
"Sustainable direct-to-consumer farmers thrive by sustaining
their farm businesses year after year."

Research Objectives

Objective 1: Using a farmer-centered approach, perform needs
assessment: on which business decisions do farmers need the most
assistance to sustainably scale their operations? 

We will collaborate with a core
team of farmers (the project Producers) who have experience
scaling up their operations, to develop surveys, and facilitate
focus groups and listening sessions to identify our regional
farmers’ most pressing business challenges.

Objective 2: Synthesize data and develop curriculum materials
to respond to the greatest business needs as determined in
Objective 1. 

Quantitative and qualitative data
analyses will be conducted on the information collected in
Objective 1. Each identified topic will be investigated by
cataloging best-known-methods, interviewing farmers and
agricultural professionals, and identifying professionals that
can lead information sessions and trainings, among other
potential outcomes.

Objective 3: Design educational series to communicate findings
in effective and accessible format.

Farmers have reported “webinar
fatigue”, reluctance to wade through uninformative websites, and
frustration with “waiting on hold for hours” to get answers
specific to agricultural questions. Using information gleaned in
Objective 1), the Farmer Core Team will assist in applying SARE’s
“Sustainable Agriculture through Sustainable Learning” best
practices to develop educational formats and delivery approaches
that our farmers are most likely to consume. These are
anticipated to include such formats as peer-to-peer learning
circles, working sessions with professional advisors, panel
discussions, training sessions, and development of a resource
library.

Education objectives: 

Objective 1: Create a farmer-friendly resource library to
archive learnings.  

Housed on the existing PNWCSA
“Farmer Resource” website, this will allow for the findings of
this project to be accessible to all agricultural
professionals. 

Objective 2: Facilitate the peer-to-peer learning network.

Led by the Farmer Core Team, a
peer-to-peer learning network will be established amongst
agricultural stakeholders. By hosting in-person events on their
farms, and communicating through a listserv, farmers growing
their businesses will interact with each other and share their
experiences, providing educational and social support for their
fellow farmers. 

Objective 3: Increase knowledge and understanding of business
decision making among farmers.

PNWCSA and the Farmer Core Team
will offer a series of educational sessions and workshops
addressing needs identified in Research Objective 1. Delivery
method and pedagogy will be aligned to specific topics to
maximize value and accessibility.

Objective 4: Empower more farmers to make better-informed
business decisions, improving their economic well-being and
quality of life. 

Through attending educational
sessions, having access to materials in the resource library, and
being part of a peer-to-peer learning network, farmers will be
equipped to make higher-quality business decisions in a more
efficient manner.