PHILADELPHIA FARMS: PHILADELPHIA COMMUNITY FARMING COLLABORATIVE DEVELOPS NEW AND BEGINNING FARMERS TO GROW LOCAL FOOD FOR PHILADELPHIA

• Sponsoring Institution: National Institute of Food and Agriculture
• Project Status: COMPLETE
• Funding Source: OTHER GRANTS
• Reporting Frequency: Annual
• Accession No.: 0229593
• Grant No.: 2012-49400-19646
• Cumulative Award Amt.: $70,663.00
• Proposal No.: 2012-00744
• Project Start Date: Sep 1, 2012
• Project End Date: Aug 31, 2013
• Grant Year: 2012
• Program Code: [BFRDP]- Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program

Recipient Organization
Nationalities Service Center
1216 Arch Street
Philadelphia,PA 19107

Performing Department
(N/A)

Non Technical Summary
The Philadelphia Community Farming Collaborative (PCFC) is a newly formed alliance of community based organizations which produce fresh, organic food for low-income communities through a citywide network of farms. PCFC improves the well-being of our neighborhoods by increasing interest in and access to local food through production, distribution and education. In 2009 Philadelphia Mayor's Office presented the Greenworks Philadelphia Plan, which called for equity goals around food, including encouraging more commercial agriculture and integrating local food into anti-hunger programs. Specifically, the plan called for the addition of 86 local food outlets by 2015 to help bring local food within a 10 minute walk of 75 percent of residents. As of September 2011 one in four Philadelphians was identified as food insecure. As food insecurity and diet related problems continue to plague Philadelphia, more and more consumers are looking to farmers' markets, CSAs, coops and other venues to provide fresh, nutritious and affordable locally grown fruits and vegetables. Although many farm apprenticeships and farmer training programs exist outside of Philadelphia, most of these do not reach Philadelphians who lack transportation to these sites to learn how to grow food. Transportation and cultural differences between urban and suburban/rural areas are two of the barriers that prevent many Philadelphians from taking part in other SE Pennsylvania beginning farmer training programs. As organizations that understand the landscape of urban food production, we propose to harness our strengths as a collaborative to provide training to beginning urban food producers in Philadelphia. Philadelphia Community Farming Collaborative has 15 FTE staff farmers who work to train BFRs within the City limits. These staff farmers are themselves intermediate level BFRs. Collaborative members have years of experience positively engaging a diverse group of Philadelphians. Over 80% of the adults and youth that our organizations work with are low-income, and over 75% are socially disadvantaged. Nationalities Service Center works solely with refugees. Many of our organizations focus on youth development as well as farming. We regularly engage our communities in reflection to figure out what will make our services more effective. Our organizations propose to create a collaborative training program for 8 beginning farmers through the initial development grant. The trainees will be selected from a number of projects in the collaborative. Up to four trainees will come from the refugee communities through NSC and four will be recruited from PCFC projects around the city. All trainees will have to apply and go through a selection process. They must commit to the internship for the season. One of the great benefits will be cross cultural sharing and education as people from diverse backgrounds undergo training together throughout the year.

Animal Health Component

(N/A)

Research Effort Categories

Basic

(N/A)

Applied

(N/A)

Developmental

100%

Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)	Subject of Investigation (SOI)	Field of Science (FOS)	Percent
601	6030	3100	100%

Knowledge Area
601 - Economics of Agricultural Production and Farm Management;

Subject Of Investigation
6030 - The farm as an enterprise;

Field Of Science
3100 - Management;

Keywords

urban farming

collaborative

Goals / Objectives
Goal 1. Establish a network of BFR training opportunities through efficient collaboration across PCFC organizations. Provide at least 8 beginning farmers with extensive training and mentorship experiences through host sites and the network of training opportunities. PCFC Proposed Project Outcomes for 2013 Farming Season BFR Trainees 8 BFR farmers receive stipends for training as farmers for 10 hours a week and 40 hours a month. 8 BFR trainees learn more about organic farming as a profession. 8 BFR trainees are mentored by both FTE farmers at host site and the training coordinator throughout the nine month growing season. 8 BFR Trainees participate in 20+ hours of on-farm field days on 10 seasonally appropriate workshops hosted by PCFC sites. 8 BFR trainees learn more about farm record-keeping, finances, crop-planning, propagation, production, and marketing. PCFC Collaborative 2 farm host sites will provide weekly mentorship opportunities coordinated with the training coordinator, with each site hosting 4 BFR farmers PCFC members will provide at least ten workshops for the 8 BFRs as well as farming conference, networking opportunities, and personalized trainings. PCFC collaborators will provide other weekly opportunities to BFR trainees to network, visit collaborative sites and farmers markets.

Project Methods
The Philadelphia Urban Farming Collaborative proposes to create a collaborative training program for 8 beginning farmers through the initial development grant. The trainees will be selected from a number of projects in the collaborative. Up to four trainees will come from the refugee communities through NSC and four will be recruited from PCFC projects around the city. All trainees will have to apply and go through a selection process. One of the great benefits will be cross cultural sharing and education as people from diverse backgrounds undergo training together throughout the year. The two host sites will include the Urban Nutrition Initiative¿s Farm and Food Resource Center in Southwest Philadelphia and Weaver¿s Way Coop¿s Farm at Saul Agricultural High School. Each collaborative member will provide a workshop for a series of 10 BFR training field days for the BFR trainees between January and November (See Table 3). The collaborative will also provide financial literacy, crop planning and record-keeping training as well as opportunities to build capacity by participating in regional farming conferences.

Progress 09/01/12 to 08/31/13

Outputs
Target Audience: Our target audience was all beginning farmers from Philadelphia, with a particular emphasis on reaching vulnerable Philadelphians, including immigrant refugees, and limited resource and socially disadvantaged individuals of all ages. One hundred percent of 11 BFRs were socially disadvantaged and 100% were economically disadvantaged according to USDA definitions of those two groups. Five of the 11 BFRs were resettled refugees. All BFRs had less than 10 years of farming experience. Changes/Problems: Our initial award was for 8 BFR trainees. We ended up starting with 12 BFR trainees and fundraising for additional support. one of the BFRs received an agriculture-related job offer, so we graduated 11 BFRs. This was a 26% increase above the expected number of BFRs receiving stipended support in 2013. Eleven BFRs also completed business plans, mentorship experiences and business plan presentations. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? As mentioned above, each of the 11 BFRs that completed the program received a certificate of completion of 350 hours traning related to organic food production. 12 BFRs completed a cornell/Rutgers Food Safety Certification. 12 BFRs completed the Wharton Small Business Development Center First Step workshop. 12 BFRs completed Eleven BFRs completed business plans that included a crop plan, a farm budget, a mission, vision and values, and a business tax structure and marketing plan. Eleven BFRs presented their business plans to an audience of approximately 30 people each of two evenings. They developed Power point presentations and presentation skills as part of this process. As discussed above, 12 BFRs and the training coordinator, as well as many FTE farmer trainers attended the NOFA-NJ winter conference where they attended workshops on harvest and post-harvest handling, organic orcharding, pollination, soil health, and a keynote address on four-season harvests by Elliot Coleman. Throughout the season the BFRs went on 20 fieldtrips that included visits to five farms in NYC, Quiett Creek Herb Farm and Rodale Institute workshop on weed managemnt, farm tools and a presentation on tools by Green Heron tool company. Other field trips included Gravity Hill Farm in NJ, Living Hope Farm in Pennsylvania, Pete's Produce and Springton Manor farm in Chester County, Lee Reich's farmaden in New Paltz New York, and a number of Philadelphia urban farms in the PHS City Harvest Program including Farm 51, Germantown Kitchen Garden and Southwark. BFRs also received small engine and BCS training from Master Farmer Shane LaBrake. Farm trainers received a two-day small engine and tractor workshop from Mr LaBrake to build the trainer's capacity. Trainees are currently working through the winter to garner seed money for the next steps in their business plans with support from PHS City Harvest staff and NSC staff. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Nationalities Service Center did an article about the BFR program for their fall 2013 print newsletter as documented above under citations. This newsletter went to 800-1000 Philadelphians. Weavers Way Coop did a July 2013 Coop Shuttle article about the BFR program as well on page two. This newsletter reaches approximately 5000 cooperative members and northwest Philadelphia residents. Pennsylvania Horticultural Society also recognized the BFR graduation on their facebook page. PHS had 20,000 members. NIFA was recognized in each of these outreach events. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Although we were a one year BFR development grant, we are currently revising our curriculum and working with our BFR graduates to continue to develop their business plans and to identify and acquire seed money to implement their business plans.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? One part-time training coordinator was hired in November to coordinate our BFR training program. 12 BFRs were accepted into our training program for 2013. They each received 40 hours a month of paid training at $10/hour from January through September. One of the 12 trainees left the program in May due to a job offer at a mobile farm market. Eleven trainees completed over 350 hours in training covering subjects including crop planning, greenhouse propagation, vegetable and fruit production, harvest and post-harvest handling, farm marketing, financial literacy, creating and implementing farm work plans weed and crop identification, GAPS, managing and prioritizing on-farm tasks and avenues of land access. BFRs received over $40,000 in stipend support for nine months of training, with each BFR receiving $4400 if they completed the nine months. Nine FTE farmers provided ten workshops covering these subject areas. BFR training occurred at two host sites farms, at 9 partner sites, new sites developed by the trainees during the program and through 20 fieldtrips and workshops over a ten month period. 11 BFR trainees learned more about farming as a profession through this process of 350 hours of on-farm and workshop trainings. 11 trainees learned more about farm record-keeping, finances, crop-planning, propagation, production and marketing. All the trainees and the training coordinator attended three days of the NOFA-NJ winter conference, including a pre-conference track on organic orcharding with Michael Phillips. Trainees visited numerous farms in New York City, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Philadelphia. Each of the eleven BFRs completed a business plan and business plan presentation. Eleven BFRs were paired with an individual mentorship opportunity based on their business interests. Mentorship opportunities included visiting the Boston Food Project, the Accokeek Foundation Farm, an herbal products company, Philadelphia Bee Company, and World Crops Farm. In addition, the ten workshops presented by Philly Farms were open to the public and advertised. 43 additional members of the public attended one of the workshops provided. A graduation ceremnoy for the 11 BFRs was held at Morris Arboretum in October for the BFRs, their families, partners and mentors. Approximately 100 people participated.

Publications

• Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2013 Citation: http://www.nscphila.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/final_nsc-newslet-fall13-v4.pdf