Progress 09/01/19 to 08/31/21
Outputs
Target Audience:The Appalachian Beginning Farmer Product Diversification Project targeted farmers in Appalachia including multi-generational family farms, returning retirees to farm properties and millennials exploring entrepreneurship options in the local food scene are looking for new market opportunities in our robust Appalachian food economy. The two ACEnet processing, aggregation and distribution hubs served more beginning farmers looking for new strategies to meet the growing demand for local produce and natural and artisanal meats. The project's target audience served included: 1) beginning specialty crop farmers developing fresh cut, frozen, thermally processed or dehydrated product lines accessing direct and expanding wholesale markets 2) beginning beef, pork and poultry farmers developing artisanal cuts, frozen and ready to eat product lines serving direct and emergent wholesale markets 3) beginning goat and sheep livestock farmers developing value-added dairy products for direct and expanding wholesale markets The target geographic area for the project includes 12 southeast counties identified as part of the Appalachian region. The targeted counties include: Athens, Gallia, Hocking, Jackson, Lawrence, Meigs, Morgan, Muskingum, Perry, Scioto, Vinton and Washington. These counties have been classified by the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) as either distressed, at risk or in transition. The project was driven by the feedback from both beginning and established specialty crop, dairy and meat producers. ACEnet utilizes an intake process and a baseline survey to capture needs when we begin work with new farm clients. In our intake process we identify the immediate needs and business plan goals of farmers interested in using ACEnet services from market assistance, to facility use to develop value-added products, utilize warehousing and distribution infrastructure and be connected to capital access. Staff always works closely with the leadership of the Athens Farmers Market, the Keller Market House, the Meigs County Farmers Market, the Shawnee Farmers Market and other regional market supporting direct sales options for farmers. Through these collaborations, we targeted farm vendors interested in creating value-added product lines. We also worked with our local and state Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association members and staff to identify potential beginning farmer clients or processing tenants for the Food Ventures Center or the Food and Farm Enterprise Center. Changes/Problems:The primary change was that the scope of work essentially started shortly after the first year of COVID. As mentioned in previous sections, by spring of 2020, many of the in-person workshops and farm tours had to be pivoted to online platforms. It was actually a good learning leap for our clients to learn how to utilize technology in new ways: zoom, e-commerce, online ordering, and new curbside pick-ups aggregated at our food facilities. We also had to reevaluate and make renovations to our shared-use kitchens, creating more barriers and upgrading the HVAC systems to create safe processing and warehousing space for farmers using any of the processing, marketing or warehousing services. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?ACEnet's two incubator campuses in Athens and Nelsonvilleremained opened throughout and most of the program and incubator staffcontinued to hold in person meetings with clients and tenants with strict COVID protocols.ACEnet staff remained on track to meet the goals, objectives and activities outlined in 2020 and2021 though impacted by the COVID, ACEnet staff members have continued to evolve our remote training and technical assistance services. Zoom fatigue made the last half of 2021 challenging, and we have been using other asynchronous techniques to prepare videos and podcasts to engage with our clients. BFRDP funds allowed for Rural Action and ACEnet staff to reach a host of at-risk producers in-person in late 2019 and early 2020, but more importantly this funding provided the framework to pivot our resources and reach struggling small farm businesses during the COVIDpandemic this spring and summer. Through the Whole Farm Planning series, 85 beginning farmers from five states were connected with a host of tools and mentorship required to start and expand a farm enterprise. Topics included farm diversification strategies, Venture Model Canvas, business plan development, seasonal planning, in addition to individual mentorship with existing diversified businesses and resource providers. A total of 13 beginning farmers completed all five sessions in the series and developed a farm business model with Rural Action staff and team members, while other participants completed multiple webinars in the series based on topics of interest and need. The Whole Farm Planning program was initially launched during the report period. The primary ACEnet staff presenters in the workshops were Leslie Schaller and Adam Kody. The success of the first year then led to additional BFRDP funding to expand the program, which is still going strong into 2024. Here is the current link to the Whole Farm Project: https://ruralaction.org/our-work/sustainable-agriculture/whole-farm-planning-mentoring/ As the Whole Farm Project has evolved it has strengthened the wraparound support for beginning farmers, including access to capital, land, mentorship, professional services, site visits, and management plans. Partnering with established farmers to serve as mentors and peer educators has helped build a stronger small farm community. One of the accomplishments of both the training and mentorship has been strengthening our connections to many of these farmers to apply for various grant funding during COVID and most recently through the Ohio Department of Agriculture allocation for RFSI awards. With regard to goals all three goals, we had the following beginning farmers create or expand value-added products that were sold in both direct and wholesale market channels: Primaterra Farm, Woodland Ridge Farm, Wildcat Ridge Farms, Blaney Family Farm, Trouvaille Farm, Wild Pear Farm. Integration Acres, Root 56 Farm, Rockcamp Farms LLC, MoSo Farm, Green Edge Gardens, Morning Dew Hop Farm, Soulshine Acres, Mushbloom Gardens, Mushroom Harvest Provisions, On the Ridge Farm, Hugus Fruit Farm, Pork & Pickles, Dexter Run Farm, Pastured Providence, Creekside Farm, Veggie Vision Farm and Valley View Farm. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Describe how the results have been disseminated to communities of interest. Include any outreach activities that have been undertaken to reach members of communities who are not usually aware of these research activities for the purpose of enhancing public understanding and increasing interest in learning and careers in science, technology, and the humanities. ACEnet and Rural Action have presented at a number of conferences between 2020 and 2021 on the project. Some of the in-person conferences or gatherings include: The Ohio Food Policy Network Conference, the Central Appalachian Network Convening, the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association Conference and Exhibit Hall, and the Stinner Summit. Both the ACEnet and Rural Action websites and social media have promoted production, processing, food safety, and distribution services. The Whole Farm Project continues with ongoing support from USDA NIFA and AMS funding. Information on the beginning farmer activities have also been captured in organizational partner's annual reports since 2020. Outreach to farmers to participate in incubator, business counseling, access to capital, and marketing and distribution services are promoted through story-telling on social media and podcasts. https://acenetworks.org/regional-food-systems-partnerships/ For instance, a list of capital resources is available at https://ruralaction.org/our-work/sustainable-agriculture/whole-farm-project/funding-opportunities/ Brochures and rack cards have been designed and disseminated. Featured farmers on the podcast include: MoSo Farm, Woodland Ridge Farm, and Blue Rock Station. https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/roottoseed ACEnet and Rural Action staff also act a working group chairs in two of the Central Appalachian Network Sustainable Agriculture Working Groups: Beginning Farmers and Healthy Food Access which engages beginning farmers as peer learners. https://www.cannetwork.org/focus-areas/faswg-beginning-farmer/ After the grant report was completed, we also shared information on the projects related to the three goals during a number of presentations during the Food System: A Summit on Scalable Solutions to Creating Community Food Systems in 2022 as part of a collaboration between USDA and the Central Appalachian Network. https://www.cannetwork.org/community-food-systems/ What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Although this grant is completed, much of this work continues in another BFRDP and AMS-RFSP awards.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Infrastructure and training: The expansion within the Food and Farm Enterprise Center for meat processing and vegetable preparation for farm to school and other institutional markets was a new asset to enable a number of both specialty crop growers and livestock operators to produce more new value-added product lines, expand both direct and wholesale revenue and access new market outlets through the marketing and distribution support services. With regards to infrastructure a new walk-in was added in the facility and at the end of the grant period a new FDA thermal processing room was at the early stages of beginning construction. From 2019 to 2022 the footprint for processing, warehousing and distribution went from approacimately 14,000 square feet to 22,000 square feet. Equipment and mechanical upgrades were also completed in our original facility the Food Ventures Center to accommodate more thermal processing, flash freezing and dehydration operations. Although not initially planned, we made a number of HVAC system changes and created movable wall during the first year of the COVID outbreak to modify some of the shared-use kitchen spaces.Staff also provided technical assistance to other processing facilities like Snowville Creamery, Frog Ranch Foods and Shagbark Seed and Mill to help them source more local ingredients and be introduced to new farmers in the targeted counties. Facility management staff updated training materials and direct technical assistance counseling for FSMA implications, HACCP and FDA preparedness and work in tandem with our ODA-FDA inspector to assist new user to become licensed. Because most of the project scope was implemented at peak COVID periods, more 1 to 1 training occurred, as opposed to the originally planned group workshops. We also shifted a lot of the workshops to webinar formats. Many of which were than archived for future disseminations. Marketing assistance: as part of on-going services, we continued to provide marketing assistance to new farmers on business names, logo development, label design and compliance. We helped them determine what direct and/or wholesale markets were the best options for them in their business phase. We also worked with both retail and restaurant market partners to learn about new product lines. Again COVID had both some hurdles and some silver linings. Restaurant sourcing definitely was a challenge in 2020, but did gradually begin to pick-up again in 2021. One of the silver linings were stronger commitments from local grocery and specialty retailers to source local, mostly because they were having challenges with supply chain issues. This was especially fortuitous for meat product lines and dairy items. Because of shutdowns, farmers market also saw significant growth in customers and sales. The year round Athens Farmers Market grew by 25% in 2020. Even as things started to reopen again, many of the retail andrestaurant buyersand farmers' markets stayed more committed to sourcing local. We also worked with other partners in West Virginia and southwest Virginia to create a new regional distribution system, called Supporting Appalachia which has helped leverage farm to school buying in Ohio and WV. Most of our plans for in-person workshops shifted to more webinar development. Our partner, Rural Action launched the Whole Farm Series. Described in more detail in the next section. Entrepreneurship assistance mostly focused on marketing training, but predominantly expanded and diversified the access to capital programs. We assisted trainees with accessing KIVA loans and had workshops on crowdfunding tactics. We also assisted farmers to apply for SARE, EQIP and VAPG funding. As part of the Whole Farm Planning series, staff delivered multiple rounds of the Fundraise Creatively workshop. We continued to work with Partners Community Capital and the county revolving loan funds to help borrowers with business plans and application materials. We also helped farmers apply for some of the local and state COVID grants. We only were able to complete two all day farm tours and workshops at Trouvaille Farm and Woodland Ridge Farm and Learning Center that were attended by 17participants. Our sub-awardee partner, Rural Actionexpanded the number of regional farmers receiving small business technical assistance in a multi-county region from their sustainable agriculture and forestry staff. During the project period, Rural Action hosted 11 workshops and trainings for more than 200 beginning, diversified small farms in Appalachian Ohio. This included three specialized trainings in non-timber forest products (NTFP) cultivation, such as medicinal forest herbs and culinary mushrooms; one Good Agricultural Practices food safety training; one on-farm diversified production training; and a five-part Whole Farm Planning webinar series for beginning farm and food businesses. And although the scope was completed some of the tours that had been postponed were held in 2022 and 2023. We were able to utilize other grant funds to help provide stipends to farmer mentors. Ultimately,18 beginning farmers and 11 mentors participated in the 2021 workshops and12 beginning farmers and 11 mentors particpated in 2022. Farmer participants created 7 final business plans.
Publications
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Submitted
Year Published:
2021
Citation:
Whole Farm Planning --- powerpoint presentation modules
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Progress 09/01/19 to 08/31/20
Outputs
Target Audience:ACEnet serves specialty crop producers, livestock farmers, dairy farmers and organic producers in the Appalachia counties in southeastern Ohio. The target geographic area for the project includes 12 southeast counties identified as part of the Appalachian region including: Athens, Gallia, Hocking, Jackson, Lawrence, Meigs, Morgan, Muskingum, Perry, Scioto, Vinton and Washington. These counties have been classified by the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) as either distressed, at risk or in transition. ACEnet worked with beginning farmers utilizing both the Food Ventures Center and the Food and Farm Enterprise Center for value-added processing, meat porcessing, aggregation, distribution and storage.The project was driven by the feedback from both beginning and established specialty crop, dairy and meat producers In our intake process to become a users of the processing facilities, we identify the immediate needs and business plan goals of farmers interested in accessing all of the services from market assistance, to facility use to develop value-added products, utilize warehousing and distribution infrastructure and be connected to capital access. Changes/Problems:The most critical change has been switching many of the in person workshop to online training events using zoom and gotowebinar. We have also utilized a video platform: jitsi to create live video of equipment orientations. Over the past three months we have also started to create video archives of different meat processing and thermal processing equipment being used for value added meat and specialty crop procesing/production activities. Many of these videos can be found on the www.acenetworks.org website or posted to our facebook platform.Another timeline delay has been the workshops with Dr. Abby Snyder which should have occurred in 2020 have been postponed until 2021. We are assuming that we will shift the format to be shorter multiple day zoom trainings as opposed to in person workshops. Athens county and the surrounding counties in southeast Ohio are still seeing a considerable surge in positive cases, hospitalizations and recently a few more death from COVID 19. Althought we still have both of our processing facilities: The Food Ventures Center in Athens and the Nelsonville Food and Farm Enterprise Centers remain open, we are seeing more of a hesitation on tenants and users part to come in and process. Depending on how things go the next 6 months, we may need to request and extension on our project timeline. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?During the report period the Whole Farm Project was launched. The goal is to engage with hundreds of small, diversified farmers, and landowners in order to understand their needs and provide the tools they need to increase food production while reducing risk, enhancing profitability, and restoring local ecosystems. At the same time, we've expanded a regional network of shared use infrastructure that helps bring beginning farmers to market. The Whole Farm project is providingsupport for beginning farmers, on such topics as access to capital, land, mentorship, professional services, site visits, and management plans. ACEnet presenters included Lesie Schaller and Adam Kody on the follwing modules: Create A Brand Identity; Plan for Future Growth; and How to Fundraise Creatively. Aside from the new series, ACEnet's Adam Kody shifted the HACPP, SOPs, FDA process flow and ServSafe trainings from group workshops to 1 to1 technical assistance. Rural Action also hosted at-risk producers in-person in late 2019 and early 2020, but more importantly this funding provided the framework to pivot our resources and reach struggling small farm businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic this spring and summer. Through the Whole Farm Planning series, 68beginning farmers from five states were connected with a host of tools and mentorship required to start and expand a farm enterprise. Topics included farm diversification strategies, Venture Model Canvas, business plan development, seasonal planning, in addition to individual mentorship with existing diversified businesses and resource providers. A total of 13 beginning farmers completed all five sessions in the series and developed a farm business model with Rural Action staff and team partners, while other participants completed multiple webinars in the series based on topics of interest and need. Also during the project period, Rural Action hosted 5workshops and trainings for more than 80beginning, diversified small farms in Appalachian Ohio. This included three specialized trainings in non-timber forest products (NTFP) cultivation, such as medicinal forest herbs and culinary mushrooms; one Good Agricultural Practices food safety training; one on-farm diversified production training; and a five-part Whole Farm Planning webinar series for beginning farm and food businesses. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We have increased our posts on social media and updated a number of the marketing, access to capital and incubator facility rack cards and brochures. Most of the information continues to be updated on the ACEnet webpages.https://acenetworks.org/services/food-sector/steps-to-accessing-food-ventures-centers/ We have also shared results of the year one scope with partners through the Central Appalachai food and ag systems working groups. Both ACEnet and Rural Action staff members serve as co-chairs for the three working groups: Healthy Food Access, Begining Farmers and PAD-Processing, Aggregation and Distribution. We are also part of another USDA grant that was applied for through the Regional Food Systems Partnership funding. The information and activities in the BFRDP scope provided a demonstration for need of improved regional marketing, branding and distribution for farmers to access wholesale market channels. Outcomes form year one has indicated some of the market shift opportunities brought on by COVID supply chain disreuptions. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We will continue to provide direct technical assistance to beginning farmers becoming users of our two processing facilities. The next round of the Whole Farm Planning and Mentoring series of workshop will also take place in 2021. As partners, we are looking for additional funding to support the collaboration. With regards to access to capital needs, we will continue to assist farmers with business plan preparation and grant applications to support marketing and value-added processing. ACEnet staff have been working with local banks: Hocking Valley Bank, Merchants National Bank and the Ohio University Credit Union to provide loan officer support for farmers investing in new farm infrastructure for pack houses, high tunnels and irrigation systems. We have also helped a farmers utilize the KIVA platform for capital needs and will keep looking at ways they can be prepared to create story content for local investment loans through KIVA.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
After making a number of physical adjustments to both the Food Ventures Center and the Food and Farm Enterprise Center, we have been able to keep the facilities operational through 2020. ACEnet made upgrades to the ventilation systems, and created plexiglass moveable walls to create barrriers to producers in the central kitchen space. We also institutied a number of new COVID protocols and did 1 on 1 training with producers using any of our facilities. Masks became mandatory and we adapted some of the on-boarding food safety training to underscore the need for caution at all levels. Livestock operators were still able to use the meat processing facility, because the ODA staff were still allowed to remain on-site. Between thermal processing, veg prep for frozen foods and meat processing, 16 farmers were still enabled to continue production. We also worked with some of the farm tenants to allow curbside pick-up for customers in the dock areas as a temporary fix for CSA distribution. All the planned in person workshops shifted to zoom and we assited a number of farmers apply for local and state COVID grants. It was an extremely challenging year to navigate many of these pivots. There were a few positives with reagrds to sales and marketing. More of the local retailers increased their sources of local food, both fresh and processed. Also in Ohio farmers markets were allowed to remain open and we saw significant customer increases. As one example of how we continued to implement activities of the project goals is an example from one of our newer beginning farmers. Primaterra Farm Story: Henry Jochem has been farming on twelve acres in Perry County, Ohio since 2015. Henry's career in sustainable farming began in his early twenties when he worked on several farms throughout Maryland, eventually renting his own land and beginning his own venture, Primaterra Farm. After selling for several years in the D.C. markets, Henry decided to move his farm to Ohio and purchase his own version of the Appalachian American dream. Since 2015, Henry has grown to be an integral part of the Athens Farmers Market, offering unique specialty vegetables, duck and chicken eggs, and duck and chicken meat. Previously these things were all uncommon at the local Market. One specialty crop Henry has a particular passion for are radishes. He introduced southeastern Ohio communities to green daikon radishes, watermelon radishes and purple daikon radishes after noticing a hole in the market. Henry has worked diligently to grow the love of radishes in the community, but when you grow 1,000 + pounds annually, there are bound to be some left over. After also noticing the lack of locally grown fermented foods, Henry created an innovative solution to using up the leftover radishes in his cooler. With help from ACEnet, Henry was able to ferment over 400 pounds of radishes, with a finished product he calls "Radish Kraut," a spicy and delicious blend of radishes, cayenne pepper, garlic and pink Himalayan salt. The product is being test marketed now to his customers at the Athens Farmers Market and with the interest in fermented foods, recently the products were picked up by local by Kindred Market as demand and production grows.
Publications
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