Workshop aims to help those new to farming

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

by SUSAN MANN

FarmStart is planning to offer a course for new farmers later this fall or winter that includes experienced farmers telling their stories.

New farmers need more exposure to existing farmers, says executive director Christie Young. “What they really want are experienced farmers to tell them about their stories,” she says.

Including more access to experienced farmers is one of the changes FarmStart is making as it adapts a current workshop called Growing Your Farm Profits, developed by OMAFRA (Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs) and delivered by the Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association (OSCIA), for new farmers. This workshop was offered last winter on a trial basis in Ontario and is similar in style to the Environmental Farm Plan program with a two-day workshop and a workbook. It was mainly geared to established farmers. Organizers are recommending to the provincial and federal governments that the program be offered across Ontario.

FarmStart thought this course could be altered for new farmers. “When they saw the program that we had launched, they approached us,” explains OSCIA executive director Harold Rudy.

Slightly more than 100 farmers took the OMAFRA/OSCIA business management assessment workshop last winter. Rudy says participants liked it.

FarmStart is a non-profit organization that’s working to facilitate a new generation of farmers to develop economically viable, locally-based and ecological farm businesses.

There are several reasons why FarmStart says its program is needed. One is that new farmers don’t know how to do business planning or how to think about business development. Then there are people from business backgrounds who want to farm and know business planning but need help with farm production systems or other aspects of farming.

Another reason is “the business of farming is changing,” Young says, adding farmers need help to think about their business creatively and strategically. “There is a lot of different ways that you can think about your business.”

FarmStart has received $39,000 in funding from the Agricultural Management Institute, which is administered by the Agricultural Adaptation Council and funded by OMAFRA and Agriculture Canada.

As part of the project, FarmStart is working to adapt “the workbook so that it is more appropriate to the kinds of new farmers that we’re working with,” Young says, including people exploring the possibility of farming, prospective farmers and people who have decided they want to farm and are planning and building their skills. Two other groups are the ‘starters,’ who have been farming for one to five years, and people developing new strategies.

“We work primarily with young people from non-farm backgrounds and young people from farm backgrounds who are looking at very different operations than the farms that they come from, newcomers to Canada and second career farmers,” Young notes, adding they work with all ages of farmers.

Most of FarmStart’s clients aren’t looking to produce commodities. They are more locally-orientated with small to mid-scale farms and they are getting into value-added or high-value crops, such as selling vegetables to restaurants or producing heirloom vegetables or specialty animals.

The FarmStart workshop for new farmers will be offered as pilot program in November or January. There will likely be three courses - in Southwestern Ontario, in the east and in the north. Details of the program are still being worked out. For example, it isn’t known yet whether there will be a cost for the workshop. It’s likely the course will be adapted to be a bit longer than the two-day one being offered by OMAFRA and OSCIA.

As the content is worked out new farmers will be consulted about what should be added to the workbook. The course will cover basic terminology, an outline of who the players are and how to use available resources. “Part of what we’d be looking at is how to bring people up to a level where they could use the programs and services that exist in a way that’s actually beneficial,” Young explains. BF