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INVESTIGATOR: Zandi, H.

PERFORMING INSTITUTION:
Planting Justice
996 B 62nd street
Oakland, CALIFORNIA 94608

BUILDING BEGINNING FARMER RESILIENCE THROUGH HYBRID PARTICIPATORY EDUCATION, URBAN-RURAL NETWORKS, MENTORSHIP, AND INCUBATION

NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARY: This collaborative project aims to advance economic viability, small farm production skills, and social resilience for under-resourced and socially disadvantaged beginning farmers. With an innovative hybrid online and in-person farmer training course, as well as on-the-job training, this project addresses the concerns of the Covid19 pandemic, the aging farmer population, and declining numbers of beginning farmers. It counters these pressing issues by building comprehensive and culturally relevant hybrid courses and on-the-job training with a diverse urban-rural network of mentors and employment pathways. This proposal also recognizes that professional farmers need support to fully achieve their potential in sharing their expertise with aspiring farmers. Our target audience includes 300 beginning farmers, including 200 formerly incarcerated, immigrants, and otherwise socially-disadvantaged/systemically-oppressed participants over 3 years. With the help of host-farm educators, mentors, and Merritt College faculty, 300 participants will benefit from 210 hours of course instruction (150 individuals from the hybrid on-farm and online courses, and an additional 150 from the online courses exclusively). Courses topics include ecologically-based diversified farming, food safety, risk management, and business development. 50 of these participants will also benefit from 225 hours of financially compensated on-the-job training for college credit. Graduates can receive mentorship from experienced farmers through one-on-one consultations, paid internships, employment, and/or financial, technical, land-access and administrative start-up support.

OBJECTIVES: Over the next three-year grant period, hybrid education specialists at Agroecology Commons and Agroecology educators Merritt College will develop a hybrid training program for beginning farmers that provides credit toward Merritt College's Certificate in Urban Agroecology that will include on-farm experiential training and online coursework for 150 participants, as well a virtual certificate program that is exclusively online serving an additional 150 participants. Planting Justice and Farmer Commons will augment the virtual training through coordinating on-the-job training and farm-based learning opportunities for participants with community partners and host mentor farms. Courses will introduce practical skills in ecologically-based food production, including annual vegetable production, production of culinary and medicinal herbs, animal husbandry, soil health, nursery management, orchard management, marketing, business development of micro-enterprises, record keeping, food safety, and product certification.This program's long-term goal is to increase pathways for socially disadvantaged and limited-resource beginning farmers to establish viable agricultural micro-enterprises along the urban-to-rural spectrum by developing a network of farmer-mentors, host farms, entrepreneurs, and interconnected enterprises to support the sustained success and endurance of these new farm businesses. This includes incubating small and cooperative businesses. In the next 10 to 20 years, we envision seeding over 100 new farming businesses owned and operated by socially disadvantaged and limited-resource beginning farmers.Participants who successfully complete either certificate course will qualify for on-the-job training and entrepreneurial support consisting of one-on-one mentorship, farm apprenticeships, and mini-grants. The goals to improve on-the-job training and entrepreneurial support in this grant period include (1) co-designing customized learning plans with partner farms for graduates who will apprentice or receive employment with them; and (2) design a virtual platform for participating host farmers to exchange their knowledge and best practices for the mentorship of aspiring farmers. The various PJ farms will be one of the first sites for on-the-job training.A. Basic livestock, forestry and crop farming practicesObjectiveA.1. To provide socially disadvantaged, limited-resource beginning farmers with comprehensive vocational training, multigenerational and peer-to-peer mentorship, paid training, and interactive online coursework to advance education and experience with regenerative crop farming, livestock, agro-forestry.C. Entrepreneurship and business trainingObjectiveC.1. To equip next generation farmers with innovative yet proven strategies to design and maintain a profitable new farming business, and to empower formerly incarcerated people, immigrants and under-resourced beginning farmers with paid trainings, entrepreneurial support, and living-wage urban farming opportunities.E. Financial and risk management trainingObjectivesE.1. To help beginning farmers access farm financing programs, learn about farm funding and credit options, develop systems for record keeping, and draft risk management plans.?F. Natural resource management and planningObjectivesF.1. To support new farmers in designing farms that protect and regenerate on-farm natural resources: soil, water, air, energy, native plants and forests, wildlife, pollinators, beneficial insects and microbes.G. Diversification and marketing strategiesObjectivesG.1. To develop assessment strategies and support new farmers to implement an array of distribution and marketing models including food hub sales, CSAs, Farmers Markets, farm-stands, value-added processing, farm to restaurant sales, farm to grocery store sales, and herd sharing.??H. Curriculum developmentObjectivesH.1. Enhance engagement via the development of robust and interactive online courses, improve experiential learning via more on-the-job training, and offer greater emphasis on small business development for participants by expanding the curriculum to align with Merritt College's Certificate in Urban Agroecology.H.2. Greatly expand accessibility by offering participants the unique ability to participate in BAFT's online certificate course if they cannot attend in-person sessions, as well as replicability to other farmer training programs.I. Mentoring, apprenticeships, and internshipsObjectivesI.1. To provide socially disadvantaged beginning farmers and agricultural students with comprehensive vocational training in urban and peri-urban agriculture through hands-on training, on-farm apprenticeship and multi-generational and peer-to-peer mentorship in BAFT's small farmer mobilization program.