Beginning Farmer and Rancher Workshop Series
Throughout 2022 half of my job has been to work toward developing a beginning farmer and rancher training curriculum that the Kansas Rural Center can use to provide education to annual cohorts of new farmers who desire further education about farming but may not want to or be able to enroll in an agriculture program at a Kansas community college or state university.
Many of the farmers I’ve interacted with do not come from generational farming families and tend to be interested in growing specialty
crops, starting small meat or dairy operations, and other ventures outside the “typical” agricultural paradigm here in Kansas. Though young and beginning farmers already work hard to be good stewards of the land and plants or animals they want to raise, some of the business management aspects of their farms can be neglected due to busy schedules amongst the various other challenges of starting a farm. Thus, KRC decided to focus our trainingprogram on business management and holistic planning to help beginning farmers get their farm businesses off on the right foot.
Thanks to generous funding from the USDA’s National Institute for Food and Agriculture we were able to provide some education to beginning farmers through a virtual beginning farmer conference in March, with recordings available for farmers to access at kansasruralcenter.org/bfr. I was aso able to meet with beginning farmers to hear what areas of education and assistance they felt were lacking or unavailable to them and gained valuable insight into what types of training beginners would like to see. In addition to these efforts, KRC joined the Farm Beginnings Collaborative (FBC), a cohort of sustainable agriculture and farmer education organizations that share curriculum components, best practices, and support for facilitators of classes.
We at KRC feel that the FBC’s guiding principles for farmer training of being “farmer led, community based, and promoting sustainable farming” are a great fit for us and the work we’ve been doing for over 40 years.
Our curriculum consists of real world instruction from farmers and technical experts and facilitation by KRC staff. The 10-12 week short course will include but is not limited to:
• Whole farm planning
• Business formation
• Financial management
• Record keeping and taxes • Marketing
• Scaling up business
• Decision making
And more
Participants will work each week to build a part of their farm business plan, culminating in a presentation of their farm business at the end of the course to classmates and providing farmers with a business plan they can take to lenders, etc. Farmers I spoke with valued in-person education and meeting with other farmers, but also anticipated difficulty with driving long distances for classes on a weekly basis. At this time we’re considering using a hybrid strategy of meeting at a central location several times throughout the course with the remaining sessions held online to save participants time and fuel. A high desire was indicated for farm tours and mentorship to be part of our program, aspects that we are still discussing how best to incorporate.
Though KRC applied for more funding to start full classes this winter we have not secured the money to make it happen, so are hosting a more pared down workshop series on Thursday evenings January 12, 19, and 26, 2023. We’ll explore establishing purpose, assessing readiness to start a farm business, and creating a preliminary action plan to help farmers reach their goals.
Registration is $15, and only $5 for those who attended KRC’s annual Food and Farm Conference!
If you feel passionate about the success of beginning farmers and ranchers like I do and want to support our efforts please reach out to ryangr@kansasruralcenter.org or head to https://kansasruralcenter.org/ donate to add your financial support.
This KRC project was supported by Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program grant no. 1027549 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
Links From This Article:
KRC Beginning Farmer Resources - http://bit.ly/3jjfDoL
Farm Beginnings Collaborative - https://bit.ly/3vdta3z
Beginning Farmer Workshops - https://bit.ly/3BQVkWa
KSU Center for Sustainable Agriculture - https://bit.ly/3hF7ESr
Donate to KRC - https://bit.ly/3zSrOie