Shifting Focus: Building Pathways to Success for New Farm Audiences

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Commodities

Practices

• Education and Training: extension, farmer to farmer, networking, study circle, other
• Farm Business Management: business planning, labor/employment, risk management
• Sustainable Communities: ethnic differences/cultural and demographic change, leadership development, quality of life, social capital

In the current, dynamic environment of limited farm labor availability, escalating wages and narrow farm profit margins, creating and maintaining a productive farm workforce is a challenge for many farmers in Vermont and across the Northeast. It is a particularly pivotal issue for post start-up beginning farmers who are seeking to scale production and gain efficiencies to meet business and income goals. USDA data consistently shows that beginning farmers are more vulnerable to a broad range of agricultural risks. 

There is a growing awareness of and interest in addressing these issues among Vermont agricultural service providers (ASPs), farmer organizations and farmer educators. In open-ended questions on intake forms and evaluation surveys conducted with over 240 program participants in 2023 and early 2024, farmers, farm managers, employees and ASPs consistently linked effective labor management, human risk management, and social issues to their farm productivity, profitability and quality of life, as well as to their ability to effectively implement ecological adaptation, nutrient, soil and crop management, animal health, marketing, and food safety, strategies that contribute to agricultural sustainability in the region. Yet, agricultural service providers report that gaps in their prior training and current knowledge of information resources limit their ability to support farmers in addressing these human and social dimensions of sustainability. 

Using a flexible combination of in-person and distance education approaches, this project will address these gaps by providing information and education that builds ASP knowledge, skill and confidence to addressing labor management, human risk and equity and justice topics within the context of their priorities and programs and services that the ASPs provide. Our approach builds from the adult education strategies outlined in SARE's Sustainable Agriculture through Sustainable Learning, and Reaching Women in Agriculture publications. The program's flexible format will allow participants to focus on topics that are most relevant to their professional and program needs, while the peer learning components will provide both support and accountability.

We will establish an accountability committee, comprised of people from new farming audiences to hold project staff accountable to community interests and goals. The committee will provide increasing guidance and decision-making, with the goal of it determining the direction and activities of the next VT SARE state project.

Twenty (20) Extension and farmer educators gain capacity (increased knowledge, skills and confidence) to address social sustainability and human risk that affect persistence and resilience, particularly among new farm audiences. 

Twelve (12) participants engage in new or deeper collaborations with at least one partner of new farm audiences. Twelve (12) participants incorporate new labor management and human risk management content in their programs and/or modify outreach and delivery practices so that these programs are effective in their work with at least 60 farm employees and aspiring, beginning and established farm operators.

As a result of oversight from six ASPs and farmers serving on the project's accountability committee, new farming community goals are central to decisions about activities and allocation of funding contained in the 2027 VT State proposal.