Progress 09/01/21 to 08/31/24
Outputs
Target Audience:Programming for cohort 2 of the Midwest GRIT, which is an immersive training program focused on strengthening diverse small and mid-size Midwest food-grade grain farmers, concluded in May of 2024. GRIT supports farmers through three key areas: Education, peer-to-peer learning and relationship development, and resource sharing. The long-term goal of the project was to increase the number of successful, resilient beginning food- grade grain farmers using organic practices in the Upper Midwest, with a special focus on supporting beginning women food-grade grain farmers. Changes/Problems:Some participants missed the live sessions due scheduling conflicts. They explained that while they could watch the recording at their convenience, they preferred being there in person to ask questions and receive feedback from the presenter(s). The travel time/distance for field days was a challenge that came up. A participant mentioned that it was difficult to fit the travel time into his schedule and make it feasible for him. Another challenge was the time participants had to invest into the program. A participant revealed that she missed a lot of the lectures/presentations due to lack of time. She elaborated that she underestimated how much time the program would require. In conclusion, participants reported wanting more regional and local meetings and events, more open networking opportunities, and more direct assistance with marketing. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?List of webinars and web presentations, accompanied by hard-copy factsheets: Sept 15, 2022: Resiliency is an Attitude (9 attendees) Sept 29, 2022: Testing Grains for Quality (15 attendees) Oct 4, 2022: Peer Session (5 attendees) Oct 20, 2022: Agronomy 201 (9 attendees) Nov 1, 2022: Conservation Incentive Programs (13 attendees) Nov 17, 2022: Soil Health Management (13 attendees) Dec 8, 2022: FFI: Intro to Business Models (13 attendees) Dec 18, 2022: End of 2022 Celebration (12 attendees) Jan 10, 2023: Business Planning (7 attendees) Jan 18, 2023: FFI: Financial Statements (9 attendees) Feb 13, 2023: FFI: Intro to Financial Planning (12 attendees) Mar 7, 2023: Post-Harvest Handling (11 attendees) Mar 30, 2023: Understanding Culinary End-Use (7 attendees) April 13, 2023: Navigating Contracts(6 attendees) May 23, 2023: Community, Reflection, and Gratitude (14 attendees) June 5, 2023: Why Food-Grade Grains/ Business 101(22 attendees) June 22, 2023: Agronomy of Cereal Grains & Maize(15 attendees) July 13, 2023: Market Overview (16 attendees) July 27, 2023: Agronomy of Pulses (13 attendees) Aug 14, 2023: COMET: Mental Health (22 attendees) Aug 24, 2023: Crop Rotations (9 attendees) Both cohorts participated in an in-person networking and field day on April 20 and 21, 2023, of which there were a total of 48 cohort members and 15 total facilitators, presenters and advisory farmers in attendance. GRIT program leaders continued one-on-one technical support phone calls with cohort members to answer questions related to farming and help them address farming and marketing challenges they have recently encountered, serving 15 from cohort 1 and 10 from cohort 2. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?1. Hired Christine Johnson, program manager (December 2021) 2. Advisory committee meeting conducted to get feedback on program plan (February 2022) 3. Hired Sarah Elliott, network engagement manager, for marketing programming (March 2022) 4. Press releases and promotional materials launched via multimedia to recruit Midwest GRIT cohort members (March 2022). Applications received and interviews conducted (April-May 2022) 5. Midwest GRIT website and interactive community platform launched (May 2022) 6. Hired Hannah Francis, outreach coordinator with OGRAIN (May 2022) 7. Onboarding, program agreement, preliminary survey, event calendar released, then participation honoraria were disbursed (June 2022) 8. Program launched via two online meetings (June 2022) 9. Webinars and peer discussion sessions held, event taking place every other week (June-August 2022) 10. Field Days conducted (3; July & August 2022) 11. Post-event evaluations conducted after every event (June-August 2022) 12. Great Grains, Great Women event held in MI for women farmer participants (September 2022) 13. Contract with Food Finance Institute to present a three part series on business and financial planning for value-added farm enterprises (grain) (December 2022, January 2023, February 2023) 14. BFRDP farmer registration sponsored by MFAI & OGRAIN for OGRAIN conference (14 of 31 farmers attended) (January 2023) 15. SARE grant support for travel reimbursements for farmers to attend OGRAIN conference (January 2023) 16. Development and printing of seminar recap resource to share with outgoing cohort (#pages) (April 2023) 17. Cohort Collision event included networking, setting shared values and community agreements, market 'perfect your pitch' and tour of regional grain farm (#attendees) (April 2023) 18. Exit interviews conducted by zoom recordings and shared with UW Evaluation team for analysis (May - July 2023) 19. Onboarding, program agreement, preliminary survey, event calendar released, then participation honoraria were disbursed (May 2023) 20. Program launched via online meetings (June 2023) 21. Webinars and peer discussion sessions held, event taking place twice per month (June- August 2023) 22. Technical assistance provided directly to five cohort 1 participants as they undertook their first grain harvest. 22. Collaboration with partner organizations to host and support in-person learning opportunities (1-MFAI, 4-OGRAIN, 1-AGC, 1-Marbleseed, 1-WiWiC, 1-Foodworks Southern Illinois) (June - August 2023) 23. Second contract with Food Finance Institute to present a three part series on business and financial planning for value-added farm enterprises (grain) (June 2022, December 2023, January 2024) 24. Cohort programming for Cohort 2 concluded in May 2024, email listserv of all GRIT participants was created to keep all participants in contact. 25. Held series of 3 grain production workshops to provide additional, hands-on, enhanced support for GRIT participants. 26. Organized a women farmer-focused all-day workshop event on farm resilience in Michigan. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
The Midwest GRIT program served 61 participants during the project period. Twenty-five project participants started farming during the program, while 31 project participants reported that the program helped prepare them to start farming. Forty-seven of the program participants stated that the program had improved their success in farming. Forty-seven participants reported that the project enhanced theirknowledge of food-grade grain production, and forty-seven program participants reported that the project enhanced their knowledge of post harvest handling of food grade grains. Forty participants reported that the program improved their knowledge of marketing food grade grains, while 43 reported an improvement in their business management expertise. Overall, Midwest GRIT delivered over 60 hours of webinars to more than 600 farmers, and additionally generated over 1000 views of the www.midwestgrit.org website. We logged over 7000 meeting hours among all of our programming and program participants, both in person and virtual.
Publications
- Type:
Websites
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Francis, H., Weinstock, C., and Tautges, N. 2024. How to submit a soil sample for lab analysis. Video. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oo_xiNq09s8.
- Type:
Websites
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Francis, H., Weinstock, C., and Tautges, N. 2024. How to submit a grain sample for lab analysis. Video. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fI9Q9boXe9Y.
- Type:
Books
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Williams, K., Tautges, N., Mirsky, S., Hartman, A. and Dawson J.C. 2023.
The new growers guide to producing organic food grade grains in the Upper Midwest. UW Madison
Extension Emerging Crops Initiative, Organic Grain Resources and Information Network, Michael Fields
Agricultural Institute and Artisan Grain Collaborative. Available online at https://www.graincollaborative.
com/ourwork and https://www.emergingcropswi.org/food-grade-grains.html
|
Progress 09/01/22 to 08/31/23
Outputs
Target Audience:Cohort 2 of our educational program Midwest GRIT began programming in April 2023 and is comprised of 30 beginning farmers. Twenty four of the 30 beginning farmers had previously grown less than 2 acres of food grade grains in the past, and were enrolling in the program to learn more about growing grains for food grade markets with an intention of scaling up their farm acreages of food grade grains in the future. The 6 farmers who had previously grown food grade grains at some scale had produced less than 50 acres of food grade grains in past and, like those with less experience and/or smaller acreages, intended to learn more to scale up acreages of these crops in the future. Twenty one of the farmers enrolled had been working on a farm, or operating their own farm, for ten years or less, and the other 9 participants had been farming for an average of 15 years, but had less than five years of experience working with food grade grains, per the entrance requirements of the program. About half of the farmers enrolled were currently growing grains for feed and currently produced hay or forage, or grazed livestock, and about one-third of the farmers' operations emphasized vegetable crops. All growers enrolled were interested in the program because of a desire to incorporate grain crops into their rotations to offer products at market year-round, to diversity crop rotations, and to improve soil health. Twenty one of the partipants in cohort 2 reported their race as White; six participants reported their race as "Black or African American"; two participants reported their race as "American Indian"; and one participant reported as "Other." In cohort 2, 13 partipants identified as male, 13 identified as female, and 4 identified as non-binary/third gender. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?For cohorts 1 (enrolled April 2022-April 2023) and 2 (enrolled April 2023-April 2024), the Midwest GRIT program delivered 12 technical sessions/webinars, at 1.5 hours in length, on topics including: Approaching Mechanics and Machinery for Grain Production Exploring Current Food Grade Grain Markets "Agronomy 101" for Food Grade Small Grains and Corn Seed Sourcing Everything About Pulse Crops Land Access and Leadership Accessing Crop Insurance Understanding Soil Health Agronomy 201 -- How to Harvest Post Harvest Management for Small Grains and Corn Managing Finances with UW Madison Food Finance Institute Identifying Your Market and Niche with UW Madison Food Finance Institute The program also held 12 1-hour virtual "peer sharing" lessons to build relationships and networks among farmer cohort members, and to allow for exchange of learned knowledge among the peer group. For cohort 1, we also hosted 3 in-person gatherings, including a mill tour, a hands-on equipment handling/tractor driving workshop, and a "Great Women, Great Grains" event for the women in the cohort, where we toured 3 grain farms operated by women and held community bonding workshops. Our program also offered scholarships for individual consultation with UW Madison Food Finance Institute Business Planning Professionals, for growers to engage in one-on-one sessions with farm business experts to write business plans, improve marketing activities, pursue public and private investment, and more. Four growers in our cohort took advantage of this opportunity to write business and marketing plans for their farm operations. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The above described webinars and virtual peer sessions were delivered via Zoom, and participants were organized through email calendar invites, text messages, and phone calls. Program Manager Christine Johnson scheduled monthly one-on-one check in calls with each GRIT cohort member, for cohorts 1 and 2, to keep participants on track and to continually assess individual needs and tailor material presented to be useful to cohort members, as well as provide one-on-one technical assistance. Participants received information and travel scholarship opportunities to attend in-person field day and workshop events for UW-Madison OGRAIN Field Days, the Midwest Organic Conferences in Iowa and Ohio, the annual OGRAIN conference in Madison, WI, the annual Marbleseed conference in La Crosse, WI, a hands-on farm equipment operation at the Michael Fields Agricultural Institute in East Troy, a farm and mill tour in central Illinois, and the Great Grains, Great Women event in southwest Michigan. At least three cohort members (usually more) participated in all of these in-person event opportunities. We also organized a Cohort Kickoff and Cohort Collision event with all cohort 1 and 2 members in Rockford IL in April 2023, where participants toured a women-owned and operated farm, toll cleaning facility, and mill, and participated in team building activities. All participants received a Midwest GRIT binder with printed versions of resources developed for beginning grain farmers, full of the resources team members developed for cohort members (see attached outputs to this report, and RVS for uploaded versions of these resources). What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Given the success with cohort 1, we have mostly been repeating the content and format of information delivery for cohort 2, with some peer sessions converted to webinars given requests for more material, beyond what was presented in cohort 1. We also are preparing more in-person field days and workshops to be offered in summer 2024, to respond to feedback provided by cohort 1 members that in-person events had high impact and that more were desired, but that participants wanted in-person event offerings spread throughout the geographic area served by GRIT so as to limit travel for cohort members far from Wisconsin, where program leaders are based. These events are currently being planned and will be implemented in May-August of 2024.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
In June 2022, the inaugural GRIT training program cohort launched with 31 participants, including participants from Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Ohio. In this inaugural cohort, 25 participants meet the USDA definition of a beginning farmer; the other 6 participants may be new to food-grain farming or provide critical peer mentorship to the beginning farmers. In addition, 24 participants are women and 7 are men. The following data was collected via exit interviews at the conclusion of programming for 31 participants in cohort 1, which ran from April 2022 - April 2023. Results were summarized and synthesized by the University of Wisconsin Madison Evaluation Team. Production of Food-grade Grains § Of the 31 participants, 14 indicated that they currently had no (zero) acres of land for producing food-grade grains, most (27) had less than 100 acres and the remaining 4 had 100 acres or greater. § A third (10) of participants said that between 81 - 100% percent of their harvest met food-grade grains market specifications. Impact of GRIT programming on overall success of food-grade grain production § Participants' average rating was 3.2 on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 = no influence and/or change, 5 = significant influence and/or change). Participants to whom programming was relevant, gave higher ratings and spoke very highly of GRIT programming. Those who gave lower ratings explained that the program did not apply very well to them or their operations, despite initial thoughts of a good fit among program leaders and themselves at the time of enrollment. Impact of GRIT programming on participants' understanding of topics The average ratings ranged between 3.2 to 3.6 on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 = no influence and/or change, 5 = significant influence and/or change). Some participants gave high ratings (5) for growing food-grade grains (n=12) and post-harvest handling of food-grade grains (n=9). The average ratings for these two topics were 3.6, suggesting that participants' understanding of the topics were highly impacted by the program. Participants who gave a low rating (1) remarked that they already knew what was discussed and were practicing most of what was suggested in the presentations. Availability of market opportunities for products Availability of market opportunities was unevenly spread among participants. While 9 participants revealed that they had enough market opportunities for their products, 9 said they had limited opportunities, 6 indicated that they had many opportunities and 3 said they had no market for their products. Gains in knowledge: Production & agronomy/growing food-grade grain Responses from participants referenced increased knowledge in agronomy, life cycle of small grains, grain types/varieties, crop susceptibility to different pests, plant growth, health and nutrition, small grain seeds, identifying and certifying grade grains, timing of planting and harvesting and tillering of seeds. Participants' gained knowledge in processing and packaging, type of totes to use, where to purchase totes, cost of totes and storage, management of grain moisture content, drying and storing food grade grains, different scales of equipment in use, and harvest and post-harvest processes. Market accessibility and business planning Participants mentioned that they had acquired an increased knowledge or awareness about market accessibility and opportunities, tactics for networking and connecting with other farmers, promoting/marketing food grade grains, the importance of verifying the reputation of seed sources and to whom seeds were sold, and the availability of market for farmers who produce small and medium-sized scales of specialty crops. Responses from participants referenced increased knowledge in access to loans and grants, business plans, grants and funding opportunities, financial planning, using budget sheets and baseline financial information. Some mentioned an increased awareness about the importance of finances, and an increased understanding of taking ownership of farm finances. Creating a community Fourteen participants were able to engage monthly/often with other farmers. Some (10) did that occasionally (1 - 6 times a year) and 5 said weekly (very frequently). • Twenty-eight noted that their access to peer/farmer community over the last year had increased. • Thirty wanted to remain on the GRIT email list and gave consent for their responses to be used for a testimonial for future GRIT programming. Participants' comments on GRIT programming, community building, and long-term impact § Impressive learning environment. § Safe space for community building and networking. § Willing to stay connected and help to make the project successful. § The team was committed, supportive and phenomenal. § A great program for small-scale grain production. § In-person events preferred. § Avoid scheduling conflict. § Organization of events/programs was good. Participants shared positive comments on the OGRAIN conference, visits to breweries and field days.
Publications
- Type:
Books
Status:
Under Review
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Williams, K., Tautges, N., Hartman, A., and Dawson, J. THE NEW GROWERS GUIDE
TO PRODUCING ORGANIC FOOD-GRADE GRAINS IN THE UPPER MIDWEST. University of Wisconsin Extension. Under review.
- Type:
Websites
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Tautges, N., Hartman, A., Rieth, W., Hazzard, A., Hake, J., Glazik, W., Wepking, J., Wepking, H., Peterson, L. 2024. Post Harvest Handling. Artisan Grain Collaborative. Available at: https://www.graincollaborative.com/post-harvest .
|
Progress 09/01/21 to 08/31/22
Outputs
Target Audience: Beginning Farmers (<10 years) who have not grown grains or vegetables at larger than garden-scale Experienced Farmers (>11 years) experienced in growing vegetables but who have not produced grains Experienced Farmers who have produced grain for feed-grade, but not food-grade, markets Changes/Problems:The primary change, or pivot, that we made while designing the beginning farmer cohort-based program (Midwest GRIT), was discarding the idea of pairing specific cohort members to form "mentorships." While mentorship is an important concept for beginning farmers to receive content-specific support and experience transfer,given the diversity of background and goals of the farmers who applied to the program, and the geographic spread of the participant,we decided that pairing farmers into mentorships would not necessarily be effective. Instead, we decided to form groups of 3-4 farmers with similar goals (and as geographically proximate as possible), to create hubs of connection and potential social support networks going forward. We will be soliciting cohort participants' feedback on these groups in the beginning of year 2, and forming groups in trimester 2 (Sept-Jan) of the first cohort. Participants will be given ideas for further ways to connect outside of scheduled programming both during and beyond the cohort. Another problem/challenge encountered (as referred to above) was the diversity of program applicants. We received applications from experienced farmers managing over 1000 acres, to people who had backyard gardened but not farmed, but had designs to acquire land and start farming (the true beginning of being a beginning farmer). We were happy to receive applications from people with diverse backgrounds and did not want to discourage true beginners from learning more about farming, but had to gauge how much experience would be necessary to find the information presented meaningful and useful. We did end up admitting people into the cohort that brought that full range of experience, while tagging information/education/events sessions as potentially more useful for beginners vs. experienced farmers. This diversity of backgrounds and experience is another reason we hope breaking people into smaller groups of "like" experience and interests will help cohort members identify threads of information that are commonly helpful to all. However, we have been pleased that most of our educational programming was attended by the full breadth of cohort experience (i.e., both true beginners and experienced folks attended sessions and reported them being useful). We have invited several cohort members to be part of presenting teams, to ask that more experienced farmers share their experiences and learnings with folks newer to farming, and that model has worked well and we intend to continue creating opportunities for cohort members to lead with sharing their experiences, as appropriate. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The Midwest GRIT program has led 10 virtual webinar sessions (on Zoom) since its kickoff at the beginning of June 2022, and have hosted 3 field days. June 1: Welcome and Intro to GRIT (27 attendees) June 16: Community Agreements (14 attendees) June 22: Seed Sourcing (21 attendees) July 11: Exploring Current Markets (23 attendees) July 20: Introduction to Small Grains Agronomy (25 attendees) July 24: Approaching Mechanics (15 attendees) July 29: Gwenyn Hill Field Day (31 attendees total, 6 GRIT cohort) August 4: Sustainability 3.0 Field Day (30 attendees total, 3 GRIT cohort) August 5: Soil Sisters Field Day/Gathering (32, 1 GRIT cohort) August 8: Confidence in Decision Making (20 attendees) August 22: Land Access & Leadership (77 attendees total, 13 GRIT cohort) August 24: Organic Transition Learning Field Day (16 attendees total, 2 GRIT cohort) August 31: Life Balance w/ Wisconsin Women in Conservation (16 attendees) GRIT program leaders have also had at least 15 one-on-one technical support phone calls with GRIT cohort members to answer questions related to farming and help them address farming and marketing challenges they have recently encountered. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The Midwest GRIT cohort opportunity was announced through broad-scale multimedia platforms, including web articles, print articles, radio messages, and social media. Cohort members, once enrolled, were contacted via email, phone calls, in-person, and via Zoom. See above for a list of virtual (Zoom) events and in-person events. Marketing efforts: Directed news: -3/13/2022: Morning Ag Clips: https://www.morningagclips.com/supporting-midwest-food-grade-grain-farmers/ -3/17/2022: Public News Service: https://www.publicnewsservice.org/2022-03-17/rural-farming/wi-program-seeks-to-create-resilient-grainshed/a78320-1 -3/24/2022: Ag News 890: https://www.agnews890.com/2022/03/24/midwest-grit-paid-farmer-training-deadline-march-31/ -3/26/2022: AM950-MN: https://www.am950radio.com/events/food-freedom-radio/ -4/13/2022: Wisconsin State Farmer: https://www.wisfarmer.com/story/news/2022/04/13/organic-farming-grain-production/9513285002/ -permanent: ATTRA: https://attra.ncat.org/training-program-to-support-food-grade-grain-farmers-in-midwest/ Social Media: Midwest GRIT Instagram #371 followers Michael Fields Ag Instagram #877 Michael Fields Monthly Newsletter #3,695 Artisan Grain Collaborative Instagram #3,707 Artisan Grain Collaborative Newsletter #980 Collaborative listservs, etc: OGRAIN listserv #737 AGC Grain Collaborative #227 WiWiC #186 Collaborative Partner Field Days/ Marketing #6 Participant Forum (Farmer Forum via Podia) #32 Directed Email technical assistance/ resources to individual farmers #10 GRIT Digest (weekly) to cohort #12 One on One Calls with cohort farmers #1 What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Develop and deliver over 30 hours of food-grade grain farming instructional content delivered per participating beginning farmer 4 months of programming topics include: Peer and Calendar Check-In Agronomy of Small Grains: Harvest Considerations Tractor Calibration and Winter Crop Seeding (Field) Conservation Incentive Programs Janie's Mill Tour (Field) Soil Health Management Food Finance Institute: Business Models Celebration of Local Grains Peer Business Planning Food Finance Institute: Understanding Financial Statements Participation in regional grain and small/diversified farm conferences: OGRAIN & Marbleseed (formerly known as MOSES)--all Midwest GRIT cohort members will receive financial and logistical support to enable them to attend these conferences. Each conference will feature special sessions for members of our cohort (for OGRAIN, food-grade grain-specific presentations; for Marbleseed, a beginning food-grade grains producer-specific roundtable discussion) Collaboration with Agraria Regenerative School for Food-Grade Grain 101 seminar (part of their Farmer Fellowship) Recruitment for cohort 2023 beginning January 2023-March 2023 via relationships developed with farmers and partner organizations during the past year, as well as press releases similar to those conducted in year 1.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Goal 1: During Yr 1, the project team developed and launched Midwest GRIT, an immersive training program focused on strengthening diverse small and mid-size Midwest food-grade grain farmers. Midwest GRIT supports farmers through three key areas: education, peer-to-peer learning and relationship development, and resource sharing. In June 2022, the inaugural GRIT training program launched with 32 participants, including participants from Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, as well as Ohio. In the inaugural cohort, 25 participants meet the USDA definition of a beginning farmer; the other 7 participants may be new to food-grain farming or provide critical peer mentorship to the beginning farmers. Some of these farmers have some experience producing food-grade grains but most don't, and all are considering expanding/initiating grain production using the information from this program. Goal 2: There are three primary ways in which we have begun to support market opportunities for beginning farmers. Specific programming on market development: During the first trimester of programming, GRIT participants were given the opportunity to attend a peer session (July 11 virtual seminar) focused on market development. Guest speakers and topics included: A farmer presenting on direct-to-consumer opportunities A distiller presenting on opportunities to sell grain to the beverage industry A consumer packaged goods (CPG) maker presenting on developing value-added products for direct-to-consumer and wholesale production. Market development programming offered in-conjunction with other GRIT trainings: Because developing marketing channels is an integral part of a successful farm business, several GRIT trainings and educational opportunities have included a component of market development and relationship building across the grain value chain, including: a guided tour of a malting facility in conjunction with an organic cereals field day (6/6/22), and a Field day (7/31/22) at Gwenyn Hill Farm, integrating holistic farm management, livestock and food-grade grains to end-user (farm market and direct to baker) opportunities. Relationship building with the Artisan Grain Collaborative (AGC): Project partner AGC is a network of farmers, millers, maltsters, bakers, chefs, food manufacturers, brewers, distillers, researchers, and advocates working together to promote a regenerative grainshed in the Midwest. GRIT participants have been invited to apply for membership with AGC to both support their education during the one-year GRIT training and also to provide wrap-around support after they have completed GRIT. Thus far, 9 members of the 2022 GRIT cohort have become members of AGC, and participate in market development opportunities including engaging with stakeholders across the grain value chain during AGC working group meetings. AGC maintains five working groups: Farmer Collaboration, Institutional Procurement, Research & Variety Testing, Brewing & Distilling, and Education & Outreach. In the recent quarterly Farmer Collaboration Working Group meeting on August 9, 2022 GRIT farmers were invited to engage in a question and answer session with Jill Brockman-Cummings, mill manager of Janie's Mill in central IL. Goal 3: Of the inaugural cohort, 24 participants are women and 7 are men. Throughout the first months of programming, GRIT partnered with MFAI sister-project Wisconsin Women in Conservation (WiWiC), and Soil Sisters, a women-focused agriculture and conservation organization in WI and MN, focused on providing agricultural and networking opportunities for women to offer joint programming to GRIT women farmers and other Upper Midwest women stakeholders. On August 5, GRIT co-hosted a meet-and-greet with women farmers and agricultural organizations to develop regional networking opportunities, career advancement, and social relationship strengthening. On August 31, WiWiC and GRIT partnered to provide an educational and community-building roundtable for women to share their experiences on balancing farming and other aspects of life. These efforts will continue in Y2 when GRIT co-hosts a women-only overnight workshop in September 2022 in partnership with Michigan Agricultural Advancement (MiAA) with planned visits to Granor Farm, Firefly Farm, Kellogg Biological Station, and the Edward Lowe Foundation. Planning activities for this retreat were undertaken in Y1. Goal 4: Tools developed during Yr1 include: Midwest GRIT website: https://www.midwestgrit.org/ Including: Farmer Forum (peer question and answer, resource posting) GRIT Group Agreement General calendar for Midwest GRIT Equipage (equipment sharing web platform for farmers, like a posting service) - www.farm-equipage.com; in beta testing mode currently Peer Learning Sessions offered as webinars on the following topics: program overview, group agreements, exploring markets, approaching mechanics/introduction to grain cropping machinery, crop rotation decision-making, life-balance/mental health management, and grain testing Technical Sessions on the following topics: Seed Sourcing, Basic Grain Agronomy, Land Access, Crop Insurance Public-facing resources: Seed Sourcing Farmer Finance Options Goal 5: We worked closely with the UW-Madison Evaluation Team, who we have engaged to serve as consultants and support for evaluation of our project both during and after the beginning farmer programming has been implemented, to develop evaluation procedures from the initiation of the project. We held monthly meetings with Dr. Evelyn Hammond of the Eval Team, who helped develop a sociologically robust survey to give to beginning farmer cohort members before they started engaging with cohort programming. The survey collected information regarding operation composition and farming practices (e.g., farm location, size, crops grown, etc.), information acquisition and support systems (e.g., sources of farming information, size and composition of current social support networks, etc.), participants' desired learning outcomes from the program, and standard demographic information. As disbursement of honoraria and participation in programming was contingent upon completion of this on-boarding survey, we received a 100% response rate. With Dr. Hammond, we also developed a post-event evaluation survey, which is distributed after every event. The post-event survey was designed to measure satisfaction with the event, perceived quality of information, perceived effectiveness of delivery and method, and the degree to which the event created "connectedness" among cohort members (i.e., to measure networking opportunities. The surveys were applied via Qualtrics, per standard UW Evaluation Team methods, and results were analyzed and summarized via summary statistics by Dr. Hammond. Responses to the post-event surveys are used continually to improve content, delivery, and quality of the educational sessions for the beginning farmer cohort, and also to describe experiences of cohort members during the annual reporting period to NIFA (via REeport and RVS)
Publications
|
|