Performing Department
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Non Technical Summary
The Agriculture and Land-Based Training Association (ALBA) and our consortium of longstanding partners - California FarmLink, Carlson Food Safety Consulting, Community Alliance with Family Farmers and Kitchen Table Advisors - are pleased to re-submit the Farmer Education and Enterprise Development (FEED) project. FEED is a 3-year, $600,000 initiative designed to establish organic farm businesses. Over 80+% of FEED project beneficiaries are beginning socially disadvantaged (BSD) farmers of Latino origin. Many participants are migrant farmworkers who face significant knowledge, experience and resource barriers to farm ownership.Offering affordable access to land, equipment, technical assistance, financing, and markets, FEED makes it possible for BSD farmers to leverage their agricultural skills toward a brighter future in farming. The project is conducted on ALBA's 100-acre organic farm and provides a comprehensive farmer development program delivered by a consortium of bilingual staff and partners. The project lowers the barriers for BSD farmers to launch and grow a farm venture, improving livelihoods, creating jobs and jump-starting America's next generation of farmers.The FEED goal is to enable 150 beginning and socially disadvantaged farmers to launch, incubate and/or sustainably establish independent organic farm businesses. In addition, FEED will provide outreach, information and learning opportunities to another 300 regional BSD farmers. Helping farm workers pursue the dream of farm ownership is an ambitious one. ALBA has proven it can be achieved, aided by a well-qualified team, a strong partner consortium and an experiential, multi-year farmer development program. Every farmer brings different knowledge, skills and resources to the program, and, thus, has a unique developmental timeline. Even so, our experience shows that all farmers pass through key stages, each of which calls for distinct training activities, resource allocation and milestones.We define the stages as follows:(1) Start-up (Year 1-2). Aspiring farmers take the Farmer Education Course (PEPA) to learn all aspects of farm business management. In year two they launch their business on ½ acre where they test their commitment, capacity and potential for independent farming.(2) Incubation (Year 3-4). Having shown potential and commitment, farmers now take on enough land to support themselves, grow market-ready product, explore new market channels, gain experience managing a work crew, and begin to master financial management and regulatory compliance.(3) Transition (Year 5-6). Showing stronger general management skills, attention turns to locating land, securing financing and solidifying business relationships while adjusting to farming at a new site.(4) Maturation (Year 7-8). Farm businesses stabilize and grow, looking toward long term goals, while tapping into ongoing education, information, and business services through the consortium.ALBA's role in FEED is largely focused on the first 5-years of farmer development providing services through Start-up and Incubation to mid-way through the Transition stages. Strategic partners offer targeted education and technical assistance during this time and their role increases for those farmers in the Transition and Maturation stage.Each of FEED's objectives focuses on a developmental stage, with the third objective encompassing the final two (Transition and Maturation). The three-year BFRDP funded FEED program will provide services to BSDs at all stages of the continuum including 70+ in Start-up, 70+ in Incubation and 40+ in the Transition and Maturation stages.The first two objectives center on ALBA's core activities: the Farmer Education Course (PEPA) and the Organic Farm Incubator, including the marketing service provided by ALBA Organics. Done in tandem, these services develop the necessary knowledge, skills, resources and market access to establish a new farm business. The third project objective aims to strengthen the long-term sustainability of farmers, aiding in the transition, planning and management process during and after the move to a new land parcel. Though the focus of the project is on current and past ALBA participants, the third objective will also extend services beyond ALBA alumni, providing outreach and assistance to more than 300 BSD farmers in the tri-county area. Moreover, bilingual tools developed under FEED will be posted on our website and shared with partners' farmer networks nationwide, including USDA 'New Farmer' website.
Animal Health Component
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Research Effort Categories
Basic
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Applied
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Developmental
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Goals / Objectives
The FEED goal is to enable 150 beginning and socially disadvantaged farmers to launch, incubate and/or sustainably establish independent organic farm businesses. In addition, FEED will provide outreach, information and learning opportunities to another 300 regional BSD farmers.Objective 1 (Start-Up): 70 farmers gain education & assistance to prepare for & launch farm businesses.Objective 2 (Incubation): Strengthen viability of 70 beginning farm businesses.Objective 3 (Transition and Maturation): 40 newly independent farmers transition, stabilize & strengthen their farm businesses; 300 additional farmers provided information & assistance to help their businesses.Helping farm workers pursue the dream of farm ownership is an ambitious one. ALBA has proven it can be achieved, aided by a well-qualified team, a strong partner consortium and an experiential, multi-year farmer development program. Every farmer brings different knowledge, skills and resources to the program, and, thus, has a unique developmental timeline. Even so, our experience shows that all farmers pass through key stages, each of which calls for distinct training activities, resource allocation and milestones. We define the stages as follows:(1) Start-up (Year 1-2). Aspiring farmers take the Farmer Education Course (PEPA) to learn all aspects of farm business management. In year two they launch their business on ½ acre where they test their commitment, capacity and potential for independent farming.(2) Incubation (Year 3-4). Having shown potential and commitment, farmers now take on enough land to support themselves, grow market-ready product, explore new market channels, gain experience managing a work crew, and begin to master financial management and regulatory compliance.(3) Transition (Year 5-6). Showing stronger general management skills, attention turns to locating land, securing financing and solidifying business relationships while adjusting to farming at a new site.(4) Maturation (Year 7-8). Farm businesses stabilize and grow, looking toward long term goals, while tapping into ongoing education, information, and business services through the consortium.ALBA's role in FEED is largely focused on the first 5-years of farmer development providing services through Start-up and Incubation to mid-way through the Transition stages. Strategic partners offer targeted education and technical assistance during this time and their role increases for those farmers in the Transition and Maturation stage. This is particularly true for CFL and KTA who assume heightened responsibility for farm viability once farmers leave ALBA's RDC.The logical framework below, states the goal and objectives of the FEED project, linking outputs and outcomes to each objective. Each of FEED's objectives focuses on a developmental stage, with the third objective encompassing the final two (Transition and Maturation). The three-year BFRDP funded FEED program will provide services to BSDs at all stages of the continuum including 70+ in Start-up, 70+ in Incubation and 40+ in the Transition and Maturation stages.The first two objectives center on ALBA's core activities: the Farmer Education Course (PEPA) and the Organic Farm Incubator, including the marketing service provided by ALBA Organics. Done in tandem, these services develop the necessary knowledge, skills, resources and market access to establish a new farm business. The third project objective aims to strengthen the long-term sustainability of farmers, aiding in the transition, planning and management process during and after the move to a new land parcel. Though the focus of the project is on current and past ALBA participants, the third objective will also extend services beyond ALBA alumni, providing outreach and assistance to more than 300 BSD farmers in the tri-county area. Moreover, bilingual tools developed under FEED will be posted on our website and shared with partners' farmer networks nationwide, including USDA 'New Farmer' website.Objective 1 (Start-Up): 70 farmers gain education & assistance to prepare for & launch farm businesses.Objective 2 (Incubation): Strengthen viability of 70 beginning farm businesses.Objective 3 (Transition and Maturation): 40 newly independent farmers transition, stabilize & strengthen their farm businesses; 300 additional farmers provided information & assistance to help their businesses.
Project Methods
Offering affordable access to land, equipment, technical assistance, financing, and markets, FEED makes it possible for BSD farmers to leverage their agricultural skills toward a brighter future in farming. The project is conducted on ALBA's 100-acre organic farm and provides a comprehensive farmer development program delivered by a consortium of bilingual staff and partners. The project lowers the barriers for BSD farmers to launch and grow a farm venture, improving livelihoods, creating jobs and jump-starting America's next generation of farmers.ALBA operates the FEED program at the RDC located in the heart of the Salinas Valley where fertile soil and temperate climate affords year-round farming. The RDC is a 110-acre parcel of irrigated organic land, with a training center, produce cooler, equipment yard and offices. The facility is an oasis of small-scale organic farming, surrounded by large, conventional growers. Farmable land is split into fourteen blocks each independently farmed by over 30 BSD farmers.The Salinas Valley is an ideal climate for growing cool-season fruits and vegetables and only an hour away from the San Francisco Bay Area, one of the strongest U.S. markets for locally-grown organic produce. Given the significant number of Latino farmworkers and the wealth of local expertise in agriculture, ALBA and our consortium of partners are ideally located to launch and develop BSD farmers. The resulting FEED project offers an intensive, land-based, experiential learning opportunity which can serve as a replicable model for BSD farmer development nationwide.Program StructureALBA's farm development activities are comprised of three main program components, described below. These components regularly incorporate partner support, but the proposed FEED project significantly expands services to farmers during and after their time at ALBA to raise their chances for long-term success. The Programa Educativo para Pequenos Agricultores (PEPA) is a ten-month, 300-hour farmer education course that features classroom instruction and field-based training to teach aspiring farmers how to launch and operate a small organic farm business. The course is split into 6 modules covering organic production, crop planning, marketing, business management, farm planning and applied farming. Participants are able to apply lessons learned in the classroom by group farming the 1.3 acre practice plot over two crop cycles. Each year, 30 participants enroll in the Hartnell College-accredited curriculum. The course is taught in a bilingual format by ALBA staff with Masters Degrees in crop science, business and environmental policy. ALBA also engages partners and local professionals to lead class sessions from the agribusiness, NGO and policy sectors. PEPA is the first year of the Start-up stage under Objective 1. All FEED partners lead 1-3 PEPA class sessions per year.The Organic Farm Incubator (OFI) welcomes 12-15 PEPA graduates as they start their 2nd year of the program. Over four years in the incubator, farmers gain affordable access to land, equipment and technical assistance. This enables participants to gradually establish an organic farming business in a supervised, reduced-risk environment. ALBA staff provide daily in-field assistance in areas such as crop planning, soil management, irrigation, cultivation and weed and pest control. On the business side, ALBA assists with record-keeping, financial management and regulatory compliance. ALBA facilitates business relationships with for-profit, non-profit and government service providers - including FEED partners - preparing farmers for independence. In a given year, the program assists up to 35 incubator farmers in all aspects of operating a farm. The four years of the Organic Farm Incubator spans the Start-Up (year 2), Incubation (year 3-4) and Transition (year 5) stages of the developmental cycle. As a result, farmers in different stages of OFI receive services under all three of FEED's objectives. ALBA Organics (AO) is a social enterprise within the larger non-profit, which markets farmers' organic strawberries and vegetables in the open market. As a food hub, ALBA Organics markets and ships incubator farmers' produce to clients in the San Francisco Bay Area and around the state. Through quality control and aggregation, ALBA Organics serves clients which are otherwise out of reach for our small farmers due to their size. These include large retailers such as Whole Foods and Trader Joe's, and institutions such as Stanford University, UC Santa Cruz and several Silicon Valley technology firms. AO is available to all incubator farmers and continues as a marketing option after they transition away from the RDC. In a typical year more than 50 farmers market their produce through AO, resulting in $3m in revenues for small farmers annually.Alumni Services - In the 5th and final year at ALBA, farmers look to a successful transition from the incubator and secure long-term business stability. FEED partners California FarmLink and Kitchen Table Advisors take center stage at this point, providing the financing, land matching and business advisory services to help farmers navigate the Transition (years 5-6) and Maturation (years 7-8) stages. Should pending and current alumni choose, they may continue to turn to the marketing services of ALBA Organics and CAFF. Alumni Services are provided under Objective 3.Principles of Farmer DevelopmentEntrants to the program - predominantly Mexican immigrants - bring considerable experience in agriculture and a strong work ethic. However, they typically have little or no experience in whole farm planning, marketing, managing staff or running a business. Adding to the challenge, they are often limited in terms of capital, formal education and IT and English-language skills. With this in mind, the FEED approach is rooted into the following underlying principles: Generous - but fixed - time frame - To achieve the farm-worker to farm-owner transition, intensive assistance must be offered over several years to allow participants to gain command of all aspects of farm management. It is equally important that the program be time bound, so that participants maintain a sense of urgency to learn and while preparing for independence. Rising expectations - Each year of the program brings more stringent requirements for continuation in the incubator, always mindful of the goal of farmer independence. ALBA sets milestones for productivity, revenue, and acreage farmed. ALBA also expects farmers to demonstrate increased capacity in handling key business functions such as record-keeping, financial management and reporting, the renewal of insurance policies and handling of their organic and food safety certifications. Declining Subsidies - The true costs of running a farm business are introduced gradually. ALBA subsidizes access to land and equipment for incubator farmers. This lowers the barriers to launching a small farm and minimizes financial risk. Incubator farmers pay just 40% of the market rate in the first year of leasing land and renting equipment. The subsidy declines yearly as farmers approach independence. Farmers are not charged for production and business assistance, but time allotted to them declines as they gain experience. Start small - To further lower financial risk, land allotments start small. Many mistakes are invariably made in the early years of farming. Though farmers often associate more land with more profit, it can easily lead to greater losses if not managed properly. Farmers start with an average of a ½ acre to test their farming and management capacity. In this way the consequences of early missteps are not financially debilitating. In successive years, acreage rises to 2, 4 then 5+ acres as capacity grows.