Progress 08/01/16 to 01/31/20

Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience for this Education Enhancement Team project is Beginning Farmer Educators and Professionals. Between August 1st, 2017 and January 30th, 2020we trained 23 Farm Beginnings facilitators and 10 staff from 10 additional organizationsduring 6 multi-day meetings totalling 96 hours of train-the-trainer. The staff from other organizations included 4 Directions Development from the Red Lake Nation in Minnesota, Upper Sioux Community in Minnesota, Rosebud Reservation from South Dakota, Minnesota Food Association from Minnesota and NOFA Vermont. In addition we shared informationabout the Farm Beginnings model with 210beginning farmer educators and professionals through presentations at 4Sustainable Agriculture conferences. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Toward our objective of recruiting and training organizations to join the FBC we have made progress in training eight FBC members to provide on-boarding and mentoring for new organizations through the work of a newly formed On-Boarding Team. The first round of training occured in 2017 with Sheri Doyle and Dori Eder. Following this traingin Sheir and Dori served asn mentors and trainers for staff from the Ohio Ecological Food and Farming Association who joined the FBC in early 2017. In August 2018 6 FBC members met for their first training on the 2-part recruitment process, namely Exploring Phase and On-Boarding Phase. Thus both organizational site visits and new facilitator training were discussed. Also in August, NOFA-VT submitted the formidable "Interest Form" kicking off the work in earnest. After several phone meetings, it was determined that Ryan Dennett at member organization MOFGA would serve as mentor to NOFA-VT, and thus be trained by Sheri Doyel at AOLC to do the site visit and later facilitator training. In December, Sheri and Ryan traveled to NOFA-VT for the 1.5 day site visit for in-depth sessions with staff, met board members farmer educators, and visited a local farm. In March, two staff from NOFA-VT travelled to AOLC for the annual FBC meeting for the next step in the process, and in May were recommended and approved to join the FBC. In June, 2019 Ryan and Sheri again traveled to NOFA-VT to conduct the 1.5 day training focused on Farm Beginnings curriculum and logistics training. Two other FBC member organizations attended that training in order to observe, and be trained themselves, on the on-boarding process. The benefits of spreading this work to other leaders in the FBC became clear as a goal in this past year, strengthening the sustainability of our continued recruitment and facilitator training work beyond individuals at particular organizations. Gabriela Pereyra of GrowNYC and Rachel Tayse of Ohio Ecological Food and Farms Association were the two trained. In July 2019, the manual to guide the continued on-boarding work was drafted, which details the process put in place over the last 1.5 years, with funding from this grant, to recruit, assess, and on-board new programs. This draft was turned over to the DEI Committee in August 2019 to finalize in accordance with our new goals to be more strategic in both our on-boarding efforts and in our curriculum content, towards being more flexible in our approach, and thus more inclusive. Progress has been made towardimproving financial education for students enrolled in Farm Beginningsby providing 2 trainings for Farm Beginnings facilitators and sharing the completed publication, Farm Beginnings: Improving Financial Skills for Beginning Farmer. Through this trainings and this resource 14 beginning farmer trainers will increase their knowledge and skill in financial planning training and in teaching improved financial decision-making for affordable land access and 6 beginning farmer trainers adopt new or improved teaching templates and tools for financial education. Farm Beginnings: Improving Financial Skills for Beginning Farmer.was created for farmer trainers and shares the strategy behind the approach members of the Farm Beginnings Collaborative take to building financial planning skills with beginning farmers. The publication offers educators hands-on tools, including sample curriculum, along with recommendations that apply to the field of beginning farmer training as a whole. As a presenter at NCR SARE's Beginning Farmer Training 75 Beginning farmer trainers from other organizations outside of the Farm Beginnings Collaborative were introduced to the best practices for financial planning and increased their awareness of this resource for improving beginning farmer training. Toward the objective of exploring adaptation of Farm Beginnings to meet the needs of socially disadvantaged beginning farmers including Native farmers we have met and exceeded our goals. We have been able to move forward with this work because of the capacity that FBC member organizations have built in the last two years through seven racial justice trainings with three different trainers and coaches.. Final evaluations show that 5 out of 10 organizations are higly aware of racial justice issues compared to no organizations identifying as highly aware prior to the start of this project. Three organizations adopted curriculum that is equitible and inclusive for a diverse audience since the start of this project. Six organizations reported being somewhat skilled at using curriculum that is equitable and inclusive for a diverse audience and one organization reported being highly skilled at the end of the project. Comparatively, at the start of the project all but one organization reported being neutral or only somewhat unskilled at using curriculum that is equitable and inclusive for a diverse audience. We also saw an increase over the course of this project in the number of organizations that are intentially reaching out to engage socially disadvantaged farmers. At the start of the project all but 2 organizations were nuetral of disagreed with the statement that they are intentionally reaching out to engage socially disadvantaged farmers. At the end of the project six out of 10 organizations agreed or strongly agreed that they were intentionally reaching out to engage socially disadvantaged farmers. More organizations are also reaching out to form partnerships with beginning faremrs organizations led by people of color with 50% responding they have formed at least one new partnerships. This progress is significant and makes it possible for us to reach and exceed our goals of sharing the Farm Beginnings model and serving more socially disadvantaged farmers through the tools and resources offered through Farm Beginnings. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Since the fall of 2016 has improved and significantly increased our outreach efforts including developing new materials and directly reached out to over 70 prospective organizations with our new Recruitment Packet, as well as talking with over 30 prospective organizations through presentations and exhibiting at three conferences. The FBC was invited to present at three major conferences: Our Farmers, Our Future, USDA's SARE's National conference, Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group Conference and the Northern Plains Sustainable Agriculture Society Annual Conference. FBC members presented "Success in New Farmer Training"at SSAWG and SARE and conferences addressing a total of approximately 120 attendees. FBC members also exhibited at MOSES, SARE and Grass Exchange conferences and in the fall of 2019 presented at the national Farm Viability conference in Minnesota. Through this increased recuitment activity we have generated an active list of 30 organizations who are actively considering joining the FBC. FBC has reached out with individual emails and follow-up phone calls to each of these organizations to share information about Farm Beginnings and learn about their beginning farmer training efforts.Throughout the fall of 2018 and winter of 2019, follow up communications were made with these prospective new programs. Earthdance in Missouri decided they are at capacity for now and cannot launch Farm Beginnings. Sprout NOLA and their consortium within Grow Louisiana requested an advising meeting on launching a CRAFT network, facilitated by Sheri Doyel at AOLC with multiple programs on the phone. Redhills CRAFT launched near Tampa, Florida under the advisement of Tom Spaulding (also with AOLC) as a preliminary step to launching Farm Beginnings (a strong farmer network is necessary to successful implement Farm Beginnings in a region). He also advised a group near Indianapolis, Indiana on launching a CRAFT farmer network as well, although they decided to partner with Young Farmers Coalition chapter in their area. Farm Beginnings: Improving Financial Skills for Beginning Farmer.was created for farmer trainers and shares the strategy behind the approach members of the Farm Beginnings Collaborative take to building financial planning skills with beginning farmers. The publication offers educators hands-on tools, including sample curriculum, along with recommendations that apply to the field of beginning farmer training as a whole. As a presenter at NCR SARE's Beginning Farmer Training 75 Beginning farmer trainers from other organizations outside of the Farm Beginnings Collaborative were introduced to the best practices for financial planning and increased their awareness of this resource for improving beginning farmer training. In addition we have copies available on line at https://landstewardshipproject.org/improvingfinancialskills . Over 20 downloads of this publication have been shared. Additionally, three members of the Farm Beginnings Collaborative presented our work Diversity, Equity and Inclusion work at the National Farm Viability Conference hosted in Minnesota in 2019. There were over 60 other beginning farmer trainers who attended this workshop. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Between August 1st, 2017 and January 30th, 2020we trained 23 Farm Beginnings facilitators and 10 staff from 5 additional organizationsduring 6 two-day meetings totalling 96 hours of train-the-trainer. The staff from other organizations included 4 Directions Development from the Red Lake Nation in Minnesota, Upper Sioux Community in Minnesota, REDCO from theRosebud Sioux Tribal Government in South Dakota, Big RIver Farms from Minnesota and NOFA Vermont. In addition we shared informationabout the Farm Beginnings model with 210beginning farmer educators and professionals through presentations at 4Sustainable Agriculture conferences. As a result of our recruitment and on-boarding work we have replicated the Farm Beginnings Model in three new places, Vermont, Ohio and in collaboration with staff from REDCO at the Rosebud Sioux Tribe in South Dakota. We are in the process of replicating parts of the Farm Beginnings cuirriulum with the Big River Farms with staff from the Food Group in Minnesota. Two of these organizations joined the Farm Beginnings Collaborative, while Rosebud Sioux Tribe and Big River Farms continue to collaborate as affiliates while the Farm Beginnings Collaborative figures out additional tiers of membership to better accomodate people of color and Indigenous-led organizations. Through our training and relationship building with allied organizations led by people of color and Indigenous leaders we identified the need to change our membership structure and outreach strategies. This is a weaving together of two objectives of this project, replicating the Farm Beginnning model and increasing access to Farm Beginnings trainings and tools for people of color and indigenous communities. Through the relationship building effort with alled organizations we have been more successful at reaching our objectives for this project. At our annual meeting in March, 2019, through a strategic planning process, it was determined that the recruitment of new organizations to the FBC should align with our continued work on diversity, equity, and inclusion within our membership (which reflects our individual organizations' efforts to be more diverse, equitable, and inclusive in the content of what we deliver as well as in whom we serve). To that end, the newly formed On-Boarding Team (details on training below) was transformed into the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Committee, with strong strategic work being done on which organizations to approach for recruitment, as well as analyzing how we might adjust our standards and curriculum to servemore diverse groups of farmers.

Publications

• Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Farm Beginnings: Improving Financial Skills for Beginning Farmers, 2019, Land Stewardship Project, https://landstewardshipproject.org/improvingfinancialskills

Progress 08/01/17 to 07/31/18

Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience for this Education Enhancement Team project is Beginning Farmer Educators and Professionals. Between August 1st, 2017 and July 31st, 2018 we trained 20 Farm Beginnings facilitators and program staff during two multi-day meetings totallying 35 hours of train-the-trainer. In addition we shared informatino about theFarm Beginnings model with 140 beginning farmer educators andprofessionals through presentations at 3 Sustainable Agriculture conferences. In the final year of our grant we expect to continue to provide in-depth training for 20 Farm Beginnings facilitators on theFarmlandAccess: Financial Decision-Making Tool, share best practices for financial planning education with 20 beginning farmer educators and increase the use of USDA programs by beginning farmers (50) served through curretn Farm Beginnings programs. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Between August 1st, 2017 and July 31st, 2018 we provided 5 professional development trainings reaching 160beginning farmer educators with over 40 hours of training. In addition to providing training to 20 beginning farmer educator's through two Farm Beginnings Collaborative meetings we were invited tothree different conferences to present information on successful approaches to beginning farmer training.Our presentation titled "Success in New Farmer Training" at the SSAWG conference (Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group) in Tennessee in January 2018, revealed strong interest in our topic and in the work of the Farm Beginnings Collaborative. We reached 60 beginning farmer educators and professionals during this one workshop. From that experience, we decided to attend more conferences and to also have a table (in addition to presenting). We then attended the MOSES (Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service) conference in Wisconsin in Febuarary 2018. In April 2018 we presented atOur Farmers, Our Future, USDA's SARE's National conference. Our presentation titled"Success in New Farmer Training" was attended by 60 beginning farmer educators and professionals. In February 2018, Farm Beginnings Collaborative members presented at theNorthern Plains Sustainable Agriculture Annual Conference on the topic of successful models for beginning farmer training to an audience of 20 beginning farmer educators and professionals. We also presented a theGrassfed Exchange in South Dakota. To support these informational outreach efforts, we produced table-top visuals and brochures that did not exist before, and our visibility to both farmers and other service providers was greatly enhanced. Attending conferences was not part of the plan originally, but we have forged new relationships with organizations that are now potential Farm Beginnings Collaborative members. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?In 2018 additional steps were taken to improve the on-boarding process including updating the FBC Website and creating a Frequently Asked Questions sheet and Interest Form finalized. Recruitment materials were updated and printed. A promotional packet including these recruitment materials was mailed it to eight organizations after researching, nationally, who might be a good fit for joining the Collaborative. A PowerPoint presentation template was created with logo and unified look to be used for all FBC presentations. A new table-top posters and a banner were created and used to promote the FBC. All of these items were distributed to FBC members for incorporation into their own promotional activities. With our increase outreach effort we are currently in conversation with 10 organizations across the country who are at some stage of exploring adopting the Farm Beginnings model and/or joining the Farm Beginnings Collaborative. We are actively engaged with all of these organizations through a regular phone conversations and have initiated joint planning with over half of these organizations. Three of these organizations attended the most recent FBC Facilitator Training meeting at the end ofAugust in Omaha, NE. Staff from twoFBC member organizations are following up with each of these three organizations to explore adaptation of the Farm Beginnings model to meet the needs of their beginning farmer audiences. Each of these organizations serve socially disadvantaged audiences including Native American, Hmong and Latino. Other specific examples of the FBC work to support organizations outside the FBC include working with Wild Willow Farm(San Diego County, California) on planning work for a BFRDP grant application. We created a guide for exploring joining the FBC, based on last year's addition of Ohio Ecological Food and Farming Association. "Exploring" can happen in phases, and on the guide includes consulting hours, travel and trainings - all articulated with a budget. This has now been used in conversations with three other prospective organizations. In depth meetings, discussing the expectations, process, and benefits of joining the FBC and launching a Farm Beginnings program have occurred with: Practical Farmers of Iowa, Florida Organic Growers Association, Earthdance Organic Farm School, NOFA VT, PASA, Compti Field of Dreams, Alliance of Sustainable Farms, Wild Willow Farm, Appalachian RC&D, Appalachian Sustainable Development, and WORC-Idaho. Less in-depth conversations have occurred with University of Kentucky, Winona Technical College, Rowan Cabarrus Community College, Farm Share Austin, and Sprouting Farms. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?The following steps remain and will be completed over the last year of our project. OBJECTIVE 1: Identify Gaps and Improve Financial Planning Education for Trainers Step 1.2 Test new financial planning curriculum with Farm Beginnings Courses. Initial testing of new curriculum occurred during the winter of 2017. Following the piloting of the Farmland Access: Financial Decision-Making Tool in September 2018FBC facilitators will be orientated to the new resource and encouraged to pilot the training in their own state. We will gather results of the testing ofthis new curriculum happening in the spring of 2019. Step 1.3 Train FBC trainers and other beginning farmer training program staff on new financial planning curriculum. Web-based training on the Farmland Access: Financial Decision-Making Tool be provided for FBC members who plan to use this resource in their state. Step 1.4 Develop best practices report for teaching financial planning with beginning farmers.This work is on-going and will be completed by February 2019. Step 1.5 Share best practices report for teaching financial planning for beginning farmers with national groups of beginning farmer training organizations. This step will happen during spring 2019 and will be shared with other beginning farmer training organizations across the country through Farm Answers, conferences and the BFRDP PD meeting. OBJECTIVE 2: Replicate Farm Beginnings program with 3 to 5 new organizations Step 2.2 Train 4 FBC trainers on how to provide training and mentor for new Farm Beginnings programs. A group of 8 trainers have formed a working group and received their first training on August, 21st in Omaha, Nebraska. Step 2.3 Provide training and Mentoring to 3-5 new Farm Beginnings programs. This work will be on-going throughout the next 10 months. Step 3.2 Train 12 FB trainers and 10 leaders from partner organizations on racial justice and on culturally appropriate training tools for socially disadvantaged beginning farmers. We plan to extend the timeline for this so that more FBC members can develop relationships with farmers and leaders from partner organizations in their region to complete this step at the FBC annual meeting in March 2019. Step 3.3 Continue peer-to-peer support for addressing racial justice and adopting new approaches for reaching socially disadvantaged beginning farmers. This has already started but again based on the level of interest we plan to continue this activity through out the duration of the project. OBJECTIVE 4: Increase use of USDA programs by beginning farmers Step 4.1 Create train-the-trainer materials, power point and workshop module explaining USDA programs. The steps to achieve this objective began recently and will be completed by January 2019. Step 4.2 Train beginning farmer programs on USDA programs and provide teaching templates and materials. This training is planned for Spring 2019 through in-person and web-based meetings.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Over the last year the Farm Beginnings Collaborative has worked together to make progress toward the objectives of this project. We have accelerated our effort toward our goal of sharing the Farm Beginnings model with other organizations either as members of the Farm Beginnings Collaborative or through a joint process of exploring options for partners to adapt Farm Beginnings to meet the needs of socially disadvantaged beginning farmers including Native farmers. Toward our objective of recruiting and training organizations to join the Farm Beginnings Collaborative much progress has been made in the past year. We have improved our outreach materials and directly reached out to eight prospective organizations with our new Recruitment Packet, as well as talking with over 20 prospective organizations through presentations and exhibiting at three conferences. The FBC was invited to present at three major conferences:Our Farmers, Our Future, USDA's SARE's National conference,Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group Conferenceand the Northern Plains Sustainable Agriculture Society Annual Conference. FBC members presented "Success in New Farmer Training"at SSAWG and SARE and conferences addressing a total of approximately 120 attendees. FBC members also exhibited at MOSES, SARE and Grass Exchange conferences. As a result of this increased outreach we are having more interest from organizations interested in joining the FBC. Responding to requests for information is going very smoothly now with the process clarified and the materials ready to go. We are in active conversation with several organizations now, already having had conference calls with them, as well as their submission of our Interest Form which requires a significant amount of work on their part, articulating their current programs, partners, community relationships, and internal capacity. Internally, we have a committee of facilitators/administrators who will share in the on-boarding work, including in-person organizational assessments as well as training the new facilitators. Eight people from seven organizations are on this On-Boarding Team (committee) and the work of training them is in progress. Toward the objective of exploring adaptation of Farm Beginnings to meet the needs of socially disadvantaged beginning farmers including Native farmers we have made significant progress. We have been able to move forward with this work because of the capacity that FBC member organizations have built in the last two years through two racial justice trainings and the application of knowledge gained during these trainings in their work in different states. Evaluations from the racial justice training at the FBC Annual meeting in New York City show that 70% of FBC member organizations agree or strongly agree that they plan to use the information they learned to increase outreach to socially disadvantaged beginning farmers. Similarly, about the same percentage agree or strongly agree that they plan to use the information they learned to partner with an organization led by people of color who are serving beginning farmers. Specifically, three Farm Beginnings Collaborative members have built relationships with organizations in their regions reaching farmers of color. As a result of this relationship building 2 farmer trainers from partner organizations led by or serving farmers of color will be attending the facilitator's meeting in August in Omaha, Nebraska. This progress is significant and makes it possible for us to reach and exceed our goals of sharing the Farm Beginnings model and serving more socially disadvantaged farmers through the tools and resources offered through Farm Beginnings. Progress has been made toward improving financial education for students enrolled in Farm Beginnings by convening six facilitator calls. These calls were used to improve content and delivery of financial education for beginning farmers. In addition LSP worked to finalize the Farmland Access: Financial Decision-Making Tool, craft an on-line directory of financial tools and resources organized according to shared learning objectives for Farm Beginnings and research best approaches to financial planning. We are on schedule to pilot a training using the Farmland Access: Financial Decision-Making Tool on September 15th 2018 in Rochester, MN. Following the piloting of this training, LSP staff will evaluate and adjust the tools and resource to improve the training. Once we have made changes to the financial tool we will train Farm Beginnings Collaborative members on how to use the tools and resources and share them on the FBC Dropbox file. We will also share what we learn through piloting this training with organizations serving beginning farmers across the country both through in-person meetings and web-based trainings including posting the resource on USDA's Farm Answers website. For the final objective of this project, we have been focusing our efforts to help connect beginning farmers with USDA resources on FSA programs, specifically beginning farmer loans and micro loans. We have developed and shared a guide to working with FSA for our FBC members and updated our status as approved vendors for borrower training through FSA's national office. The newest Farm Beginnings Collaborative member, Ohio Ecological Food and Farming Association, was added to our application and has since been approved as a vendor for borrower training in FSA. With the passage of the Farm Bill Dakota Rural Action staff will lead the development of resources for facilitators to share with beginning farmers about how to access USDA programs. We are now including a question that measures the number of beginning farmers enrolled in Farm Beginnings who access USDA programs. Currently, 42 out of 118 beginning farmers who completed the survey participate in USDA programs (36%). This percentage varied significantly from 0 to 60% across the eight organizations who sent out the survey to Farm Beginnings graduates. This number is a baseline and will help us gauge our effectiveness is increase the use of USDA programs by Farm Beginnings graduates through annual surveys.

Publications

Progress 08/01/16 to 07/31/17

Outputs
Target Audience: Limited resource producers Organic producers Small farms Specialty crop producers Women Changes/Problems:On unexpected outcome of this project was what we are learning about approaches to serving socially disadvantaged audiences. Through our conversations with FBC member organizations there are some organizations who are seeking to partner with organizations who work directly with socially disadvantaged beginning farmers. This has provided an opportunity tore-evaluating our approach to sharing the Farm Beginning's model. Specifically, some organizations are now lookingfor ways to partner with organizations that have direct relationships with socially disadvantaged farmers instead of building that capacity within their own organization. In some cases this may be the best approach to increasing access to Farm Beginnings for a more diverse audiences. For example, for some Native American tribes we are exploring adapting Farm Beginnings to work best for Native farmers. As we explore this collaboration we are thinking about how adapt the structure of the FBC to create connection and collaboration between members of FBC and affliated partners. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Improving financial education for students in enrolled in Farm Beginnings - Since the start of this project FBC facilitators have had three opportunities for in-person training and 4 opportunities for conference calls. Of the 11 organizations that offer Farm Beginnings, 14 individuals representing 9 FBC organizations attended the 2-day Facilitators Training on August 25th and 26th, 2016. Overwhelmingly, this Facilitator Training was rated very highly, providing motivation to improve financial training and providing tangible resources, tools and curriculum for how to do so. Since the development and dissemination of the financial resources at the Facilitators Training, evaluation has been conducted on use of the resources in the 2016-2017 Farm Beginnings courses and planned use in the upcoming 2017-2018 courses. Of the nine FBC organizations that participated in facilitator training and/or have since reviewed materials on Dropbox (a document storage site that posts FBC shared resources), 8 facilitators/organizations responded with input on use of materials, summarized below (note - not all facilitators hosted a Farm Beginnings course in 2016-2017). To gauge this "effectiveness" of the financial education provided to beginning farmers and the increased competency of facilitators, using a scale of 1-10 (1 low, 5 average, 6 above average, 7 good, 8 very good, 9 great, 10 excellent), evaluation asked facilitators to rate their Farm Beginnings course financial education both - prior - and - after - the August 2016 Facilitators Training that focused on financial education. The result showed close to a 20% increase towards the positive, with an initial group rating prior the Training of a "6.2" or "above average." The group rating post the Training, conducted upon the completion of the 2016-2017 Farm Beginnings course to better "ground" the rating, was an "8" or "very good." This means that the more than 100 beginning farmers enrolled in Farm Beginnings during the winter of 2016 across 10 states experienced improved training on financial tools. Farm Beginnings Collaborative organizations have always worked towards educational excellence within its Farm Beginnings courses, and in many ways, achieves this status through student evaluation of its courses as a whole. That said, facilitators have asked that some focused emphasis be placed on enhancing their capacity with financial education, one of the most challenging educational components of farm business planning and management. The 20% increase in rating from "above average" to "very good" is a strong step in the right direction. Facilitators anticipate that through continued emphasis on financial education resource development and dissemination this year, the additional adoption and adaptation of resources into the 2017-2018 Farm Beginnings courses, and the ongoing peer-to-peer support and sharing of teaching tips and results, we will likely continue to see a positive rating increase that stems from the dedicated efforts started in the first year of this project. In August 2017 we hosted a second Facilitator Training. We had good participation with 8 organizations present and 13 facilitators. There were two objectives of the training, 1 - enhance financial education in Farm Beginnings courses so that beginning farmers increase financial literacy and adopt strong financial practices and 2 - increase awareness of approaches to training beginning farmers to improve their decision-making about selecting markets. We also shared the Land Affordability Tool that was created as a part of this BFRDP EET project. Based on the evaluations we met the objectives of the training with 11 out of 13 facilitators agreeing or strongly agreeing that the training increased their understanding of financial planning education for beginning farmers. Furthermore, the same number plan to use a resource from this training to improve my financial planning training for beginning farmers. Specifically, facilitators planned to use the following resources, the record keeping flowchart, examples and case studies, the land access toolkit, the updated cash flow and the income statement tools. All of these tools have been shared with all of the members of the FBC through Dropbox. Building the capacity of Farm Beginnings Collaborative (FBC) members to reach socially disadvantaged beginning farmers. The first training for FBC members to build their capacity to reach socially disadvanted beginning farmers was during the annual meeting hosted in Portland, Maine in March 2017. All of the 10 FBC members were present plus one new organizations, the Ohio Ecological Food and Farming Association and GrowNYC, an affliate organization. There were 24 people who participated in the training. We provided 3 hours of racial justice training focused on the following topics, defining racial justice, identify steps for developing an organization that supports racial justice, identify challenges of predominantly white organizations have in working toward racial justice, analyze examples of how different predominantly white organizations have worked toward racial justice evaluate how FBC member organizations can increase their capacity to work with socially disadvantaged beginning farmers. We had evaluation responses from 9 out of the 11 organizations that participated in the meeting. The majority of people who responded (7 out of 9) agreed or strongly agreed that this session helped increase their understanding of racial justice. This result along with the follow-up work that has been done since is a clear indicator that FBC member organizations have increased their awareness and understanding of the need to build their capacity in this area. As a result of this training we also developed more clarity about how we want to move this forward and made a plan. Since March 2017 LSP and GrowNYC have initiated a monthly conference call with FBC members to continue this training and help set the objectives and trainings for our next FBC meeting in March hosted by GrowNYC in New York City. Recruit new organizations to join the FBC In year one of this project much of our effort focused on establishing procedures for on-boarding new FBC members, updating training and orientation materials and creating recruitment materials that describes the process to replicate the program. We also worked with all the members of the FBC to generate a list of organizations that who we should approach who might be interested in joining the FBC. This recuitment list has also been discussed with the FBC Governance Committee in order to provide input on which organizations to reach out to first. We gave our first of several scheduled FBC presentations during the BFRDP PD meeting and the response to the idea of the FBC and interest in joining was good. We are now moving into an intensive recruitment mode to connect with organizations interested in joining the FBC. We working on improving our resources for training new facilitators including re-organizing our training tools and resources with newly defined core learning objectives. With our focused effort in the next six months we expect to be on track to achieve this objective by August 2019. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Beginning Farmer Financial Education tools and resources: We are in the process of summarizing what we are learing about best practices for financial education for beginning farmers from across the members of the FBC. This summary will be shared throughthe BFRDP Clearinghouse and as a part of a presentation to Project Directors at the BFRDP meetingin the third year of the grant. The Farm Beginnings Model: We are currently recruiting 3 - 5 organizations to join the Farm Beginnings Collaborative and adopt our beginning farmer training model. Promotional materials have been shared through the project directors meeting for BFRDP projects as well as with a list of prospective organizations. Capacity Buiding for serving socially disadvantaged beginning farmers: Resources from trainings have been shared with 24 people from 12 organizations through the Farm Beginnings Collaborative annual meeting. A summary of lessons learned will be shared with BFRDP project directors as apart of a presentation at the BFRDP PD meeting. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Each of the four objectives for this project has several steps that are needed to achieve the outcomes. Many of the steps require several months and even more than one year to complete. Those steps that remain are described below along with the time frame for completion. OBJECTIVE 1: Identify Gaps and Improve Financial Planning Education for Trainers Step 1.2 Test new financial planning curriculum with Farm Beginnings Courses. Initial testing of new curriculum occurred during the winter of 2017. Following the development of the Land Affordability Tool and training offered this summer we have extended the timeline to complete this activity to include testing of this new curriculum happening during the winter of 2018. Step 1.3 Train FBC trainers and other beginning farmer training program staff on new financial planning curriculum. There is one more opportunities for training facilitators in 2018. This step will be completed following the facilitator training in August 2018. Step 1.4 Develop best practices report for teaching financial planning with beginning farmers. This work is on-going and will be completed by the fall of 2018. Step 1.5 Share best practices report for teaching financial planning for beginning farmers with national groups of beginning farmer training organizations. This step will happen during the winter/spring of following the completion of the report during the fall of 2018 and the winter and spring of 2019. OBJECTIVE 2: Replicate Farm Beginnings program with 3 to 5 new organizations Step 2.2 Train 4 FBC trainers on how to provide training and mentor for new Farm Beginnings programs. Two out of the 4 trainers have been trained but an addition 2 trainers will be trained during the spring of 2018. Step 2.3 Provide training and Mentoring to 3-5 new Farm Beginnings programs. This step will start in the spring of 2018 and continue through the remaining time frame for the project. OBJECTIVE 3: Expand the capacity of Farm Beginnings programs to reach socially disadvantaged farmers. Step 3.1 Develop a training session on racial justice and approaches to increase outreach to socially disadvantaged beginning farmers. This step has already happened during the FBC annual meeting in 2017 but there is increased interest in having more training. We will offer a training at the next Annual Meeting and may continue to provide training again in 2019. Step 3.2 Train 12 FB trainers and 10 leaders from partner organizations on racial justice and on culturally appropriate training tools for socially disadvantaged beginning farmers. We plan to extend the timeline for this so that more FBC members can develop relationships with farmers and leaders from partner organizations in their region to complete this step at the FBC annual meeting in March 2019. Step 3.3 Continue peer-to-peer support for addressing racial justice and adopting new approaches for reaching socially disadvantaged beginning farmers. This has already started but again based on the level of interest we plan to continue this activity through out the duration of the project. OBJECTIVE 4: Increase use of USDA programs by beginning farmers Step 4.1 Create train-the-trainer materials, power point and workshop module explaining USDA programs. The steps to achieve this objective began recently and will be completed by January 2019. Step 4.2 Train beginning farmer programs on USDA programs and provide teaching templates and materials. This training is planned for Spring 2019 through in-person and web-based meetings.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Since August 2016 LSP and our project partners have made good progress toward the objectives of this project. Specifically we have focused on three areas of the project, improving financial education for beginning farmers, building the capacity of Farm Beginnings Collaborative (FBC) members to reach socially disadvantaged beginning farmers and starting to recruit new organizations to join the FBC. We have done this work through three in-person trainings and meetings, presentations at one BFRDP PD meeting, conference calls, and sharing resources and tools through Dropbox, on-line file sharing platform. In the second year of the project we will also be working on increasing the use of USDA programs by beginning farmers who participate in Farm Beginnings. Progress toward the objectives we worked on in year one is described below: Result 1. Beginning farmer trainers will increase their knowledge and skill in financial planning training. Producer action: Understand, Topic: Financial records and analysis When measured: Annually Estimated Number: 12, Actual Number: 14 Result 2. 12 beginning farmer trainers have increased knowledge and skill in teaching improved financial decision-making for affordable land access. Producer action: Understand, Topic: Access to land When measured: March 2018 Estimated Number: 12, Actual Number: 14 Result 3. Beginning farmer trainers adopt new or improved teaching templates and tools for financial education Producer action: Implement, Topic: Financial records and analysis When measured: January 2019 Estimated Number: 6, Actual Number: 6

Publications

• Type: Other Status: Other Year Published: 2016 Citation: Facilitator and Class Resources: Balance Sheet Exercise This document provides a definition of balance sheets and describes how they are useful to farmers as a tool for monitoring their finances as well as sharing this information with resource people. It also describes some key financial terms that are needed to complete a balance sheet along with tips about balance sheets for beginning farmers.