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INVESTIGATOR: PADGET, G.

PERFORMING INSTITUTION:
PRACTICAL FARMERS OF IOWA
PO BOX 349, 300 MAIN ST., SUITE #1
AMES, IOWA 50010

EXPLORING, ESTABLISHING AND ENHANCING FARM ENTREPRENEURS THROUGH DECISION-MAKING, FARMER-TO-FARMER TRAINING AND NETWORKING BUILDING

NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARY: Practical Farmers of Iowa is leading the Exploring, Establishing and Enhancing Farm Entrepreneurs through Decision-Making, Farmer-to-Farmer Training and Networking Building project to equip the next generation of Iowa beginning farmers to start and sustain successful farm businesses, to help preserve Iowa's farming legacy of food production, resource stewardship and rural community vitality. This project is designed realizing that beginning farmers need different support and resources as they move through three different stages within their first 10 years of farming. This project will create programming and curricula to train, educate and inform aspiring and beginning farmer in each stage of farming. Each series will provide business planning for decision-making, farmer-to-farmer training, and farmer-to-farmer peer support tailored each of the following stages.Explore Farming series is tailored to aspiring farmers (not yet farming).Establish Farming series is tailored to start-up farmers (0 to 5 years experience).Enhance Your Farm series is tailored to intermediate farmers (6 to 10 years experience).By the end of this project, 76 farmers will report they were able to start farming, and 263 will report they were able to strengthen their farm businesses as a result of project activities. In addition, 75 partner organizations will have accessed the Exploring, Establishing and Enhancing Farmer Training curriculum tool kit created during this project, and will have received coaching from PFI staff on how to use the curriculum tool kit to help beginning farmers start and improve farms in their regions.

OBJECTIVES: The long-term goal of this project is to equip the next generation of Iowa beginning farmers to start and sustain successful farm businesses, to help preserve Iowa's farming legacy of food production, resource stewardship and rural community vitality.ObjectivesTrain, educate and inform 1198 aspiring farmers through the Explore Farming series. This series will provide business planning for decision-making, farmer-to-farmer training, and farmer-to-farmer peer support tailored to aspiring farmers.Train, educate and inform 360 start-up farmers (0 to 5 years experience) through the Establish Farming series. This series will provide business planning for decision-making, farmer-to-farmer training, and farmer-to-farmer peer support tailored to start-up farmers.Train, educate and inform 720 intermediate farmers (5 to 10 years experience) through the Enhance Your Farm series. This series will provide business planning for decision-making, farmer-to-farmer training, and farmer-to-farmer peer support tailored to intermediate farmers.Create, revise and share a curriculum tool kit designed to help beginning farmer service providers nationwide support beginning farmers with education tailored to their beginning farmer stage: aspiring, start-up and intermediate.

APPROACH: Practical Farmers of Iowa has a strong track record of equipping farmers to build resilient farms and communities. Since 1985, when the organization was formed by a group of farmers who saw the need for farmer-led education, PFI has ensured that farmers lead our programming. Farmer members provide governance and guidance, set our priorities, lead our events, conduct our research and share their stories in the media. Farmers continue to voice a desire to learn from other farmers. Farmers see each other as highly credible, and accessing information from credible resources is key in creating sustainable change (McKenzie-Mohr, 2011). The following supporting remarks from beginning farmers highlight the importance of farmer-led learning:Project ActivitiesObjectives are structured by learning stage, something PFI has learned is important to improve the effectiveness of training for each stage of farm startup. Activities are a blend of in-person and virtual events. In-person events will be held at locations across Iowa, based on locations of participating beginning farmers. Recruitment occurs through our robust PFI network, beginning farmer network and through outreach via our online platforms and through in-person events where both PFI members and non-members join together to learn from one another. Our recruitment is enhanced by the many collaborations we make with our partners and their networks.With the very recent developments of COVID-19, Practical Farmers has adapted some of its programming intended for in-person to a virtual format. This has been a largely successful endeavor that has been well-received by our members. These already isolated farmer communities need connections now more than ever. Hopefully things will be 'back to normal' by the beginning of this project. If not, we would modify accordingly to transition face-to-face work to a virtual format.Evaluation: In order to accomplish the project's long-term goal to equip the next generation of Iowa beginning farmers to start and sustain successful farm businesses, to help preserve Iowa's farming legacy of food production, resource stewardship and rural community vitality we must evaluate the outcomes. Farming is a complex system that requires many skills and resources. In most complex systems, there are multiple pivot points where change is most likely to occur. For the past 30 years, Practical Farmers of Iowa has created a grassroots movement to change the Midwest landscape through farmer-led research and education. We know from our experience that farmers want to learn new practices from each other. This is supported by research as well. Farmers are more likely to change if they view the learning source as credible; and they see other farmers as the most credible source (Korsching and Hoban, 1990). Using the community-based social marketing model created by Doug McKenzie-Mohr this project will create change these farmers are seeking to build strong farming operations (2011).Participatory evaluations will be collected from participants throughout the activities of this project. This is important because it allows the farmers participating to drive the effectiveness. In addition, partners and collaborators will provide feedback and evaluation of the content created for the curriculum tool kit before publishing for sharing. This formative evaluation is valuable in producing content that not only fits the farmer's needs, but is able to be adapted and implemented by other organizations to support their farmer networks. Regional meet-up collaborators will conduct evaluations following their meet-ups. Sharing and reviewing these together will allow them to learn from each other and better support the beginning farmers in their region.Event Evaluation: Event evaluation will be conducted at all project events. The post-event written evaluation will be designed to evaluate the impact or change by participating and effectiveness of the program. Having this immediate feedback allows us to assess the feedback and make prompt changes when necessary and ensure the desired outcomes are being met going forward.Program Evaluation: Following the Labor4Learning program, Savings Incentive Program, and each of the Exploring, Establishing and Enhancing workshop series participants will complete end of program evaluations. Direct reporting from these participants will provide information on best practices and areas for further resource development. The questions asked will provide feedback to whether the participants were able to decide or implement the desired outcomes. The results will also be shared with the curriculum tool kit advisory committee to aid in shaping the content published in this tool kit.Organizational Evaluation: PFI member survey and beginning farmer survey both provide valuable information regarding programming directions as well as specific information on intent to change farming practices, or changed farming practices. PFI uses this feedback to direct project objectives and programming priorities. These surveys provide an opportunity for PFI to evaluate very specific goals related to the three beginning farmer stages and allow us to further adapt our programming to increase successful outcomes.All surveys collected will include both quantitative and qualitative measurements. In addition, qualitative observation from key personnel (including partners) is an effective way to gauge the more human dimensions of the project. For instance, are event attendees engaged and active in their learning experience? Do participants indicate that there is trust developed within the peer community? This is done through weekly staff meetings, event planning and event debriefing. This information is valuable in determining programming and content for future activities.