Progress 01/01/24 to 12/31/24

Outputs
Target Audience:The Athens Land Trust - GA FarmLink: At the Kitchen Table with farmers to build capacity and align opportunities project was busy working with farmers from across the state of Georgia in 2024. This project is intended to assist farmers in increasing their prodcution capacity through intentional focus on the back office skills required to ensure profitability and scale operations while accessing new markets as appropriate for their operation. Farmers included in our educational cohort include a multi-generational farming and ranching familyfrom southeast Georgia, currently with three generations of adults working the land while teaching their children who will become the fourth generation of agricultural producers in this family! Generally speaking, our project targets farmers and ranchers who are small to medium sized in their operation, with room to grow and a willingness to spend a significant amount ofextra time improving the accounting end of their operation. Our first two cohorts of Georgia farmers and ranchers include operations who are active in the following areas: beef cattle, sheep, pork, seasonal turkeys, egg production, broilers, row crops, hay production, pecans, and varied vegetable production. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Program staff attended a variety of workshops, conferences and professional development opportunities, including: ARPTAIP Project Directors Conferences - held by NIFA, with USFS, RMA, UMN, NRCS, FSA - held in Detroit in 2024. BFRDP/2501 Conference - held in Greenville, SC in 2024 Julia Shanks Farm Business Profitability course - The Farmer's Edge AgAware Farm Finance Workshop - Metter, GA 7/16/24 - AgSouth Farm Credit Georgia Conservation Districts Annual Meeting - Braselton, GA, August 4-6th, 2024 Georgia Hunger & Health Summit: Designing for Our Future - Atlanta, GA - November 2024 - hosted by CDC Foundation How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Nothing Reported What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In 2025, we will continue to hold farm field days, workshops and educational webinars for both our farm business education program participants and farmers from across the state of Georgia. All of our work is intended to support and educate agricultural producers in Georgia who are interested in expanding their production capacity, battening down the finanicials of their business so that they can make better informed decisions, accessing new markets for their products and increasing food production in Georgia. This support will continue to include accounting process education, data collection support, costing and data analysis, marketing plan implementation, basic business planning guidance, farm succession planning support and generally building a network of program completers who are willing and able to help farmers in their community with the topics covered in our program. This teach the trainer model is perhaps the most beneficial impact of the program. We intend to leave an active thriving network of farmers who are comfortable educating other farmers in their area of the state on issues of farm business, from the office or kitchen table perspective.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? In 2024 the first cohort of farmers began the first session of our farm business education program. This first cohort was comprised of 6 farmers and ranchers who are looking to increase their production capacity, who are considering entering the wholesale market, who are seeking to improve their business operations from a back office or kitchen table perspective. Participants reported learning accounting basics and best practices, greater familiarity with agricultural tax issues, increased knowledge in risk management options for their farm, and USDA programs. The first session was comprised of 10 educational curriculum meetings, 9 held via Zoom webinar and one in person event. In addition to the monthly curriculum sessions, farmers were able to attend a series of farm field days, workshops and specific topic webinars. Farmers were required to attend at least two of the in-person farm field days or workshops, from a selection of 10 events hosted. In November of 2024 the second cohort of farmers began their 10 month educational program. Members of the first cohort continued to participate so that there were 12 farmers in each meeting. With this cascading cohort model, we were able to assign each new member of the second cohort to a peer mentor from the first cohort. In this way throughout their participation in the program, producers are being trained in a teach the trainer model, where farmers talk with their peer mentor on a monthly basis. With each successive cohort added the staircase of peer mentor connection grows so that each group is knit to the last. Every 10 months through the program a new group of six farmers/ranchers will be added to the group, until our program completion in December of 2027 when there will be 30 Georgia producers who have completed the program.

Publications

Progress 01/01/23 to 12/31/23

Outputs
Target Audience: Nothing Reported Changes/Problems:Between the time this project was submitted and January of 2023, we had lost multiple staff members to other opportunities (there seemed to be a high rate of workers transitioning between roles in the post-pandemic conditions of 2022. We were delayed while we hired qualified team members. In 2023 we hired Emmanuel Stone as Project Director for this project. We also hired Seth Nivens as Farm Business Educator and Nigel Pritchard as GA FarmLink Program Coordinator. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Emmanuel Stone attended the Project Director's meeting in Seattle in October of 2023. He also attended a wide variety of USDA webinars. Nigel Prichard, our GA FarmLink Program Coordinator attended the GA Department of Agriculture & NRCS Statewide Conference in Fort Valley, GA in August of 2023. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Nothing Reported What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Because of staffing needs required we spent mcuh of 2023 planning and hiring to fill the staff positions necessary to begin this work. We look forward to a productive year in 2024 with our first cohort of farmers entering the program in February and our second cohort beginning in November. With active participants in the program we will be able to make progress towards the stated objectives which we have not yet made progress towards.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Objective 1: This year we researched a variety of farm business development curriculum and contracted two consultant groups to deliver a tailored farm business development curriculum to Georgia farmers. Curriculum delivery for our first cohort will begin in February of 2024. Each cohort will run for 10 months, each new cohort adding to the last, until November of 2027 when we have five cohorts active in the business education network. Objective 2: In order to work towards our stated goal of investing in Georgia FarmLink so that it can be a more robust resource for capacity building and aligning opportunities, this year we hired a Georgia FarmLink Program Manager. This GA FarmLink Program Manager, Nigel Pritchard, since his hire in August has attended the NRCS Statewide Conference where he tabled, providing farmers information on our GA FarmLink resources and services including: land matching services, our ARPTA farm business education project, and our farmer resources page at our GA FarmLink website. We also added a Farm Business Education Project page to our GA FarmLink website. Objective 3: We recruited through our GA FarmLink website, via our Farmer Network emails and our Athens Land Trust Newsletter. 18 farmers completed the participation application for Cohort 1. Interviews were held with qualified applicants, giving priority to farmers who qualify as both Underserved and Socially Disadvantaged by USDA definitions. Cohort 1 begins February 13, 2024, this ten month cohort will meet monthly as a group for curriculum delivery via Zoom. In addition to the monthly curriculum meetings, farmers will engage in 2 hours of one on one work with our farm business consultants (Kitchent Table Consultants and Plant to Profit). They will also engage in a monthly mentoring check-in call with farm business educators at Athens Land Trust or McIntosh SEED. During each 10 month session farmers will attend at least two farm field days to meet other network farmers, hear from USDA service providers. Not only are cohort farmers encouraged to bring other farmers who may benefit from these learning/networking opportunities, but they will be coached to share the information and resources in a teach the trainer model. While we did not start this first cohort during 2023, we did have farmers complete Interest Surveys, Cohort Applications and conduct Cohort Selection Interviews and Participation Agreement Meetings. Objective 4: No progress yet. Objective 5: As mentioned in our RVS Progress Reports the members of our Partner Organizations felt strongly that we would not be working towards this goal of deepening the bench of succession planning and farm business consultants in Georgia by hiring consultants out of California who had never worked in Georgia previously. So, we researched and interviewed several farm business consultant teams. In the end, we contracted Ellen Polishuk of Plant to Profit who has worked with Georgia farmers through her work with Georgia Organics Accelerator project, and Elaine Lemmon and Lindsey Sorah of Kitchen Table Consultants. Lindsey Sorah is currently a Georgia farmer. As our first cohort begins in February of 2024, we will begin to teach Georgia farmers in a teach the trainer model, so they can share out the skills and resources shared in the farm business curriculum. We will also build out the resources page on our GA FarmLink land matching platform website. Objective 6: Progress towards these goals will begin with Cohort 1 in February of 2024.

Publications