Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
Agriculture is a crucial industry in Pennsylvania, providing not only nutritious and locally available food to residents but also an essential source of employment and economic and environmental benefits in both rural and urban areas of the Commonwealth. However, the number of farms and farmers continues to decrease across Pennsylvania. From 2012 to 2017, the USDA census shows the number of farms in Pennsylvania has decreased by 10%, and the acreage in farmland has decreased by 6%. New and beginning farmers are finding it difficult to buy or lease farmland due to the decreased available land and the higher prices at which the remaining farmland is offered.The Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program project entitled, Setting the Stage for Succession: Tools for the Beginning Farmer Project, aims to combat this issue by piloting an overnight retreat workshop that will bring together beginning farmers that are looking to farm with retiring farmers that want to keep their land in agricultural use and facilitate the successful transition of land and knowledge.
Animal Health Component
(N/A)
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
(N/A)
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
The long-term goal of the Setting the Stage for Succession: Tools for the Beginning Farmer project is for beginning farmers to acquire farmland from retiring farmers in Pennsylvania for the purpose of starting or sustaining a profitable farm business. This project pilots an overnight retreat workshop that will bring together beginning and retiring Pennsylvania farmers to facilitate the successful transition of land and knowledge. Topics addressed through the project include finding farmland, legal and tax structures of land ownership, asset transfer channels, and the retirement planning consideration for new farmers. The project proposal also includes a training opportunity for project personnel to learn how to design and facilitate the workshop effectively.Although the long-term goal of BFRDP projects, in general, is to help beginning farmers and ranchers start farming and stay in farming, the one-year timeline of the simplified grant track does not allow for the measurement of long-term outcomes. Therefore, we have focused our outcomes to reflect the short-term outcomes that we expect to achieve within the grant timeline.1. Workshop participants will state that they have learned avenues to locate available farmland2. Workshop participants will state that they know the basics of legal and tax structures of land purchase and ownership3. Workshop participants will state that they understand asset transfer channels4. Workshop participants will state that they understand why they need to consider their own retirement needs when starting a farm business
Project Methods
This project pilots an overnight retreat workshop that will bring together beginning and retiring Pennsylvania farmers to facilitate the successful transition of land and knowledge. Topics addressed through the project include finding farmland, legal and tax structures of land ownership, asset transfer channels, and the retirement planning consideration for new farmers. The project proposal also includes a training opportunity for project personnel to learn how to design and facilitate the workshop effectively.Pitfalls associated with this type of in-person programming appear to be mainly associated with recruiting younger, beginning farmers to attend in-person workshops during off-farm job hours. To address this issue, this workshop is constructed as an overnight retreat that will begin after dinner on a Friday night and extend throughout the day on Saturday. This structure will allow the beginning farmer to focus attention on the topics presented without the distraction of possible missed off-farm earning opportunities that occur within the standard work week.