Progress 09/15/24 to 09/14/25

Outputs
Target Audience: Immigrant producers Limited resource producers Small farms Changes/Problems:As mentioned previously in the report, the unexpected loss of training farmland in Phoenix was a significant challenge this year.However, New Roots created new agrowing space at one existing farm site and is actively seeking new farmland. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Four New Roots staff were able to attend a meeting with other incubator farm programs hosted by the Institute for Social and Economic Development in April. They and staff from 12 other farmer training organizations learned best practices and shared resources related to training and technical assistance for beginning farmers, including Plain Language tools. One staff member also attended a 12-week bee keeping course through the University of Arizona Cooperative Extension. Finally, staff in Tucson learned alongside clients during a site visit from NRCS in Pima County. The Project Director brought on an evaluation consultant for the project this year. In January, they conducted a site visit to the New Roots in Arizona program sites and met with staff to discuss evaluation metrics. A big part of this was examination of IRC's Farmer Skills Benchmarking Tool, being used to evaluate farmer progress and projects objectives and a discussion on evaluation tool validity and reliability, helping to improve the tool and staff procedures of gathering data. The evaluator also held a post-visit workshop that highlighted a literature review of other tools to evaluate farmer learning and development and led to a months-long project to define each metric in the benchmarking tool as a first step to ensuring tool reliability across different enumerators. Staff have learned a lot about evaluation through the process. Baseline numbers were taken this year. The Project Director and 2 staff each from Tucson and Phoenix were part of a training meeting in New Orleans in April, hosted by the Institute for Social and Economic Development under their new "Strengthening Capacities to Provide More Effective Training and Technical Assistance" BFRDP EE project. At this meeting, the Project Director led 3 hours of training, and all staff received training in farmer outreach, measurement, plain language, curricula design, and training delivery skills. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?New Roots staff in Phoenix actively shared information about the New Roots program and BFRDP project with participants, the public, and partners throughout the reporting period. Dissemination activities included: Maintained and updated program information and resources on the New Roots Phoenix website: www.newrootsphx.org Maintained two New Roots social media accounts, Instagram and Facebook:www.instagram.com/newrootsphoenix and www.facebook.com/newrootsphoenix Outreached to multiple community-based organizations, partners and farmers about BFRDP programming through social media, presentations, tabling events and meetings. Tucson's year-long intern program, Earth Grant, through University of Arizona, has fostered presentations and networking to communities of interest in Tucson that are not typically aware of beginning farmer research activities and services. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In year 2, the project will continue to conduct outreach and enroll new beginning farmers. Training staff will continue to provide training farmland locations where beginning farmers can operate "starter" plots and access tools, water, supplies, and cold storage. Staff will continue to deliver training and support in crop production and management, food safety practices, marketing and Business management, including organizing farm and market tours and connecting farmers with new market opportunities. In Phoenix, staff will work with a cohort of farmers interested in aquaponics production. Additionally, there will be a greater focus on food safety technical assistance and support from production to marketing. New Roots will also focus heavily on market brokering and expansion to support their farm businesses and increase their income.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Immigrant and refugee beginning farmers in AZ face critical barriers to success, including lack of productive resources, low financial literacy, inaccessible and inadequate training options, and unfamiliarity with markets and service providers. Through the "New Roots in Arizona" project, The International Rescue Committee supported 78 farmers in the project in year 1, provided 34 workshops and 449 hours of 1:1 technical assistance in production, food safety, marketing, and farm business management. The project also organized 5 educational tours to nearby farmers and markets, and provided market brokering and assistance to 26 farmers. So far, 68 beginning farmers have access to improved production and harvest resources including new irrigation and wash station infrastructure on training farms, 16 are showing improvement in their crop management practices, 12 are showing improvement in their food safety practices, 17 are demonstrating improvement in their marketing and business management skills, 11 farmers have gained a new market venue and have increased their income in the first year. We expect to see many more farmers exceling in all of these areas, which will lead them to greater independence, along with more market opportunities and farm business income.

Publications