I was involved in a small way, until not long ago, with an ambitious region-wide project to stem the loss of farms big and small.
The Growing New Farmers’ Consortium recently reached the end of its funding. A core group of individuals and agencies from it is launching a new effort to sustain the resources it created. The original consortium’s goal was to help nonprofits and state and local agencies battling the decline of farming throughout New England in their efforts to keep new farmers on the land.
Why is that a good thing? Consider these dispiriting statistics:
• Between 1964 and 1997, the number of Northeast farms decreased by nearly half (46 percent).
• Without new farmers, it is likely that farms will be lost to nonfarm uses, like development.
• There are twice as many farmers over the age of 65 as under 35.
• Only half as many people are entering farming as are exiting.
• 70 percent of US farms will transition over the next 15 years. Without new farmers, our region is likely to lose those productive farms forever.
• To maintain our food and fiber production and increase regional food self-reliance, we need a continuing supply of farmers.
• We need energetic, well-trained agricultural entrepreneurs to protect the agriculture sector of our economy.
• New farmers will preserve and actively manage open land as working agricultural landscapes and maintain the beauty, wildlife habitat, water quality and general environmental benefits.
The consortium I was part of was created five years ago when the New England Small Farm Institute (NESFI) won a $1.7 million grant from the U. S. Department of Agriculture to fund the project. (The institute provides the statistics cited above.)
Growing New Farmers sought to address two problems: state and local agencies, as well as nonprofits, were innovating new programs throughout the region to help new farmers become established, but nobody among the agencies knew what anybody else was doing. Good ideas were not being shared and communicated. That meant agencies were reinventing the wheel (or the plow) when they could be learning from each other.
Another problem the consortium addressed was that many farmers didn’t know what programs were available to help. In the world of nonprofits and government agencies, relatively frequent staff turnovers, budget cuts, office moves and changing phone numbers can make it difficult to promote programs intended to help farmers. One of the ongoing legacies of this effort is the website that was created specifically for new farmers, NortheastNewFarmer.Org.
Some of the advocate agencies involved are working to ensure ongoing funding sources to keep the site going. Staffers at several agencies will continually audit this information and keep it accurate and updated.
New farmers are a hard-to-serve group of people. They come from diverse backgrounds and age groups, and no one model can successfully reach them all: some new farmers go to agricultural school and get formal training (however, there are very few programs in the country that train new farmers in organic methods), some are born to farming on intergenerational family farms, and many more move into farming from another career or after retiring, and get mentoring and on-the-job training from senior farmers. Some people just throw in to farming without any mentoring, experience or background.
The consortium brought together a diverse group of stakeholders in the region’s farming community. More than 189 organizations and agencies with missions to preserve farmland and farmers joined Grwing New Farmers. They were joined by 24 farmer advisors whose job it was to provide feedback and a “reality check” on the proposals and activities of the group.
I was one of the advisors who offered a “new farmer” perspective. (A new farmer is defined as anyone who is farming with less than 10 years of experience.) I was working as a farmhand then and about to take my first farm manager job, though I had been planning my start in farming at that point for several years. At that time I also had a beekeeping honey production business called Conservation Honey (so-named because all of my apiary sites were located on conservation land in the suburbs around Boston).
I was enthusiastic about an opportunity to learn as much as possible about who was out there to help farmers, and what was available. And I wanted to help these agencies reach out because I knew from my own experience how little seemed to be available for new farmers. Eventually, the contacts I made through Growing New Farmers became important to me in starting Heirloom Harvest, and the help I provided in my small role as one of 24 farmer advisors will help agencies and local governments better serve new farmers.
How does my work with the effort affect me now? One of the criteria I look for when hiring full-time farmhands is whether they are considering a career as a farmer, and I give such prospect hands preference. I make a point of supporting new farmers, and I encourage you to do the same. To learn more about GNF and what is available out there for new farmers, check out NortheastNewFarmer.
Of course, a farmer's work is never done, and nor is that of such an activist effort. What are some areas that I feel still need to be addressed?
• New resources must be developed to teach people how to mount a campaign to convince local governments and nonprofits — as well as their neighbors—to buy farmland for preservation in active farming.
• Many land trusts, nonprofits and towns that own farmland do not make it accessible to people interested in farming—the farmers are locked out at the gates!
• Efforts to preserve active farms don’t get enough support, as they fall between the cracks of well-established advocacy groups that work for historic preservation of buildings and structures, and conservation groups that increase “wilderness” acreage by buying farms -- and taking them out of active farming.
• More grants and other forms of financial help need to be made available for farmers that are starting a farm business enterprise.
• We need more technical training opportunities for farmers in Eastern Massachusetts.
