Kansas Rural Center to Form Beginning Farmer and Rancher Training Program
Wichita, KS – The Kansas Rural Center (KRC) is excited to announce the formation of its beginning farmer and rancher training program, made possible with generous funding by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture’s (NIFA) Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program (BFRDP).
Over the next year KRC will form the curriculum for its beginning farmer and rancher training with feedback from new and prospective farmers, as well as partners from around Kansas and the Farm Beginnings Collaborative. A conference focused on hearing from and providing resources to beginning farmers will occur in February 2022 near Salina, KS as COVID-19 pandemic conditions permit.
The Farm Beginnings Collaborative (FBC) is a national alliance of independent regional groups of farmers, farmer networks, and farmer-training support organizations, which are working together to promote Farm Beginnings, a beginning farmer training model that is farmer-led, community based, and focused on sustainable agriculture. The long-term goal of the Farm Beginnings Collaborative (FBC) is to expand the use of farmer-to-farmer training models as a proven approach for increasing the number of farmers producing food for local and regional food systems.
Kansas Rural Center’s beginning farmer training program will feature instruction on business formation and management, recordkeeping, access to land and capital, state and federal farm assistance programs, and many more topics. Farmers and other agriculture professionals will provide the primary instruction for each farmer cohort, with classroom instruction in the winter months and farm tours and workshops during the growing season. Opportunities for beginning farmers and ranchers to take part in mentorships are also being explored.
“KRC has a long history of providing agricultural education to Kansans, and we’re grateful to have the opportunity to focus specifically on beginning farmers and ranchers with our future programming, made possible by this grant,” Ryan Goertzen-Regier, KRC’s program manager, said of the project. “The challenges people getting started in food production face can be quite daunting, and we need to ensure the success of as many new farmers as possible to ensure adequate food production in Kansas as many farmers retire in the next several decades.”
This work is supported by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Other Grants project 1027549.