The California farming community is facing a demographic crisis. The average age of a California farmer is 58, and nearly 20 percent of them are 70 or older. As these farmers approach retirement, California needs to train new ones if we are to continue to feed our country and keep a healthy rural economy in the decades ahead. And with farm internships in California subject to strict labor laws, opportunities to get a hands-on farming education have become even fewer.

To help meet this need, the Center for Land-Based Learning in Winters, CA recently launched the California Farm Academy (CFA) to train beginning farmers in specialty crop production. The six-month incubator program is designed to help aspiring agriculturists transition quickly into starting their own farms. Unlike many programs and apprenticeships that require students to participate full-time or live on a farm, the CFA meets on evenings and Saturdays to accommodate the busy schedules of people who currently work at non-farming jobs. Academy students spend time in the classroom as well as in the field, greenhouse, and packing shed.

To provide perspectives from the frontlines, the CFA has teamed up with local farms such as Ferry Plaza seller Capay Organic, which also markets produce through its Farm Fresh to You CSA and Ferry Building store. Second-generation farmer Thaddeus Barsotti (pictured below), co-owner of Capay Organic with his brother Freeman, volunteers as a teacher for the Academy, and the farm serves as a site for classes and demonstrations.

When Barsotti learned about the new incubator program, he welcomed the opportunity to contribute to the education of new growers in California. Although he trains and hires workers as part of his farm business, he realizes that his farm cannot grow forever. In his work with the Academy, Barsotti can help “grow new farmers” who will start their own businesses with economic viability and sustainability in mind.

Other experienced farmers from several farms in the area, professors from the University of California at Davis, and National Resource Conservation Service employees teach Academy students the fundamentals of sustainable farming: field preparation, crop planning, soil management, pest control, irrigation, and equipment use. In the classroom, experts from organizations such as the California Alliance for Family Farmers and California Certified Organic Farmers teach students how to handle legal and financial issues, identify and develop markets for their crops, and hire, train, and manage farmworkers.

Barsotti recognizes that it is difficult for beginning farmers to understand how a farm works if they haven’t lived on one before. “If I hadn’t grown up on a farm, I wouldn’t be in the business,” he says. He believes the program gives students “an appreciation for the amount of expertise that goes into modern farms,” and serving as a mentor has also renewed his own appreciation for his line of work. “Teaching others has reminded me of how complicated the whole thing is,” he reflects. “There are a lot of details that go into farming. Farmers are always making decisions based on a set of circumstances that are never the same.”

For their final project, students will use their new knowledge to develop business plans that they will present to a panel of farmers and lenders prior to graduation. Similar to the farm training and incubator program at Agriculture and Land-Based Training Association(ALBA), the Academy will provide support to graduates after their initial six-month program by offering them the opportunity to lease land at the Center for Land-Based Learning and at Russell Ranch, located at the University of California at Davis. They can lease 1/4- to 1/2-acre plots at half the market rate for up to three years.

CFA director Jennifer Taylor explains that the first five years is a critical time for new farmers. “The Farm Academy can take some of the luck and uncertainty out of it and provide a scaffold for beginning farmers,” she says.

Graduates of the program who are renting land will be able to ask for guidance and advice from experienced farmers at the two locations. By farming plots near each other, they can also connect with other program alumni and create a support network. Taylor notes that students have already started talking about working together and sharing equipment.

Traveling from as far as San Francisco each week, the 20 students in the Academy’s first class range from young people just entering the workforce to midlife career-changers. Students come from diverse backgrounds, motivated by a love of farming as well as an interest in raising a family on a farm, working with youth, or agritourism. Some plan to farm a small one-acre plot, while others hope for hundreds of acres.

Taylor, who previously worked at an incubator program that trained beginning dairy farmers in Wisconsin, would love to see more programs like the CFA spring up in other parts of California. She envisions hubs around the state that would connect beginning farmers with regional farms and resources for mentorship and support. The last farm bill allocated money for programs that train beginning farmers, and Taylor hopes the next farm bill will continue to fund these efforts. The CFA is funded by a grant from the California Department of Food and Agriculture’s Specialty Crop Block Grant program, which is also dependent on authorization in the next farm bill.

The first session of the Farm Academy began in February and runs through August 2012. Session two will begin in late 2012 or early 2013. An application and information can be found at the Center for Land-Based Learning’s website.

Originally published by CUESA

In February 2008, Zoë Bradbury left her job at Ecotrust, where she was a regular contributor to Edible Portland, to start farming on Oregon’s southern coast. Right after leaving, she wrote, “I pulled up to my new greenhouse on Floras Creek with a riot of saw-toothed artichoke divisions in the back of the truck, teased them apart into one-gallon transplant pots, and officially began my first season farming for myself, next door to my mom and sister.”

Can you tell me a bit about the book–how you got involved, who the writers are, and why you think it’s a good read?

The idea for the book hatched about three years ago when [co-editor] Severine von Tscharner Fleming and I were at a food and farming conference together. We got Storey Publishing interested in the idea and spent the next couple of winters–during our “off” seasons–putting the book together. The essayists are from all corners of the country, and all of them are beginning farmers, meaning they’ve been running their own operations for fewer than 10 years.

When you’re just starting out farming, the heartaches and breakthroughs are so acute. It’s a rocky road for most of us. We’re short on cash, short on sleep, short on time, and long on optimism and pure buckle-down grit. A lot of the essays in this book shed light on that–some funny, some exuberant, some sad. It’s a great medley of stories for that reason, all woven together by a singular passion for growing good food.

What gives you the most hope for the coming generation of young farmers?

The fact that public awareness has shifted so much in the past ten years. I remember a time when I would strike up a conversation with a stranger on an airplane, and when they asked me what I did, and I replied that I was a farmer, they looked puzzled/unimpressed/dismissive. Now when I have that same conversation, people’s eyes light up and they say, “REALLY!!!?? That’s awesome! My sister is part of a CSA farm…” or something to that effect. More and more folks are learning about alternatives to industrial food, supporting local family farms, eating more seasonally, trying kale.

Still, there’s a lot working against beginning farmers; access to capital and land are the foremost. Money and credit are hard to come by, and buying affordable land is maybe even harder. It’s why you see so many creative arrangements–non-conventional leases, incubator farms, etc.

A few years ago, you used to write your own dispatches for Edible Portland as you began farming, Diary of a Young Farmer. How has your perspective changed in the years since, and what has remained constant?

I’m in my fifth season of running my own farm now, and things have definitely stabilized—thank God! Financially, the farm is on solid footing, and the big push to build and buy all the infrastructure we needed—barns, irrigation systems, equipment—is largely behind us for now. I’m able to focus more on fine-tuning and improving my growing practices and my marketing strategies. It’s still a roller coaster–unpredictable weather, crop failures–but the ride feels less bumpy now, I think in large part because our community of loyal customers and CSA members provide such a foundation of financial and moral support. With them behind us, things feel less catastrophic than they did in the first year or two of scratching out this little farm and getting established.

I wonder about the phrase in the title “New Farmers’ Movement.” What about new farmers today has created a movement? What is the movement and what are its goals?

I imagine every single one of the essayists in this book would have a slightly different answer to this question. Personally, I think it feels like a movement because it’s not just the farmers themselves talking about these issues, spreading the message, and doing the work. It’s a larger community of eaters, advocates, policy-makers, and everyday newspaper-reading citizens who are connecting to it. People want clean, green, fair food. They want family farms, not factory farms. And the farmers in this book want to create just that kind of world.

What are you most excited about that’s growing in your fields right now?

Other than my one-year-old, who is doing a lot of her growing in our fields right now, I’m pretty excited about the new rhubarb planting. It’s been doubling in size everyday, which feels like a little nod from the plant world that things are A-OK out there.

Originally published by Ecotrust

Last week, the National Academy of Sciences hosted a summit to discuss “superweeds,” or the widespread problem of herbicide-resistant weeds currently afflicting millions of farm acres across the United States.

Superweeds—the “weeds that man can no longer kill!”—have been in the news for several years. All across the Midwest and Southeast farmers have been photographed and filmed standing in fields surrounded by the giant plants. They bemoan the cost of pesticides and point to industrial rows of crops that don’t have a chance when up against feisty weeds that grow up to three inches a day.

Superweeds have been especially likely to appear alongside genetically engineered (GE) crops, which are engineered to withstand large amounts of pesticide and herbicide use. And these weeds show no sign of going away any time soon.

That’s why scientists and researchers from land-grant universities, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and representatives from several industry and trade groups met at last week’s summit to strategize about the problem.

A few speakers boasted about the efficiency of modern-day farming and the fact that today’s agriculture requires fewer farmers on more acres. But missing from their analysis was the long list of consequences: from degradation of the environment, to health risks from increased chemical use and, ironically, superweeds themselves.

Those who did address the weeds tended not to see them as a result of that impressive modern agriculture. Take Michael Owen, an agronomist from Iowa State University, for instance. In his talk, he contended that superweeds are neither an herbicide problem nor a GE crop problem, per se, but a behavioral problem. This analysis puts the blame on farmers for overusing herbicides. Yet the resistance situation first arose when biotechnology companies pushed herbicides like glyphosate (or Roundup) on farmers as the silver bullet to weed management without educating them on the ramifications of their ubiquitous use. And the practice of using just one herbicide year after year would not have occurred if it weren’t for the aggressive promotion of the Roundup Ready line of GE crops (engineered to tolerate Roundup).

There was some talk of non-chemical solutions by Michael Walsh from the University of Western Australia, who spoke about that country’s serious problem with a weed that has developed resistance to several herbicides. Australian researchers designed a few different weed seed control methods that destroy the seed reserves, eliminating upwards of 95 percent of the seed before it is able to germinate. But it was made very clear by the U.S. farmers attending the summit that going back to traditional methods, like cultivation, would be tough. There was little mention of organic weed management techniques such as crop rotation or the use of cover crops.

But exhausting chemical tool after chemical tool in an arms race against herbicide resistant weeds is not only not sustainable, it’s not working. And despite the fact that chemical solutions are the cause of cross-resistance and multiple resistance in weeds, the need for more chemical solutions was still at the forefront of the discussion.

Strikingly missing from the conversation that day was any talk of the next round of GE crops now in the pipeline, like Dow’s 2,4-D corn and Monsanto’s dicamba soybean, which have both been designed to be resistant to more than one herbicide at once. A full 13 out of 20 crops in the queue awaiting USDA’s approval have what are called “stacked herbicide resistance traits.”

These crops, once approved, will likely result in the use of many more gallons of herbicides and the evolution of even more powerful superweeds that will be resistant to many different herbicides—making them harder and harder to manage. Formulating new varieties of crops to withstand applications of harsher chemicals may be business as usual for these scientists and the companies they work for, but it’s an approach that ignores the underlying issue.

The final speaker at the summit was Iowa State University President Steven Leath, who said he believed that using a “land-grant approach” involving public-private partnerships will help solve this complex problem. This approach is not surprising coming from Leath; Iowa State is known for its relationships with corporations (especially Monsanto), and its agronomy department received around half of its funding from private-sector donors from 2006 to 2010. Iowa State’s campus is even home to a Monsanto Student Services Wing in the main agriculture building.

The superweed problem is one that should be attacked with preventative strategies based in weed biology and independent, interdisciplinary creativity. But partnering with biotechnology companies will likely only result in biotech solutions.

We have the opportunity to see superweeds as a wake-up call and a strong argument for pulling agriculture off the chemical treadmill to which it is bound. But to do that, public research—free of private sector influence—must be funded in order to give farmers better alternatives and to shift the focus away from the current chemical arms race against weeds.

Originally published on Grist

An organization that assists recent military veterans has an answer to the crisis caused by the aging population of farmers. The Farmer Veteran Coalition (FVC), based in Davis, California helps returning veterans become farmers at a time when the farmer workforce is dwindling rapidly. And, Executive Director, Michael O’Gorman, is on a mission to give veterans a reason to fight—for their own well-being and the need to keep the United States secure in its food supply.

As explained on their Web site:

America’s farms are facing a crisis for lack of young able-bodied individuals going into agriculture. The 2007 Census of Agriculture reveal that the average American farmer is 57 years old, up from 55 in the last Census, with two farmers retiring for every one entering the field. This staggering figure, with the increasing interest in creating more sustainable and local food systems, has created unique and exciting opportunities for beginning farmers.

Organic farmer Nash Huber, of Nash’s Organic Produce, confirmed this trend of diminishing farmers in a conversation we had at the annual EcoFarm conference. He told me that at conventional agricultural conferences the farmers all appear to be 65 years old and up. But he marveled at the numbers of young people interested in organic and sustainable farming at EcoFarm. Not surprisingly, that’s where I met a group of young farmers and veterans from the FVC last February.

A Helping Hand for Returning Vets When it Counts the Most

The FVC provides much needed assistance to returning vets who are interested in starting their own farms. They help by pairing vets with farmers as mentors, since many interested vets have no farming experience. They also help them access the unique resources available specifically for veterans. Their goal is to reduce risk for the new farmer veteran so that they have the best chance of success in their new venture in agriculture. The FVC conducts retreats, conferences, and workshops nationwide, and they have a job and internship placement program.

Small Vet Farms Thrive in Niche Markets

The types of farming operations that have resulted from the program are varied: from heirloom vegetables to heritage poultry, maple syrup production, and beekeeping. Most of these farms are less than 10 acres in size, and that’s for a reason. Returning veterans often don’t have the money necessary to buy land or invest in starting up a business of any type. The fact that their farms tend to be small, even “backyard operations” is a natural outcome. But this has worked to the advantage of the veterans, explained Chris Ritthaler, National Veteran Outreach Coordinator for FVC, in our recent phone conversation. (Chris Ritthaler served in the Marine Corps from 2002-2006.)

Ritthaler told me that it’s not feasible for a returning vet to get the acreage necessary for a large operation which requires not only lots of land, but expensive equipment and infrastructure. The vets that come to FVC for help often don’t have any resources and don’t qualify for large bank loans. Instead of starting a large operation of 60 acres, farmer veterans are finding niche markets with their small farms by supplying heritage poultry to chefs, or in pick-your-own vegetables (Hungry Mother Organics), or raising free range pastured chickens for eggs and meat (Across the Creek Farm), to give a few examples. There is even a veteran run organic composting company called Veteran Compost that employs vets and vet family members.

Giving Back to the Community

Navy veteran Kelly Carlisle started a farm with a twist. Acta Non Verba: Youth Urban Farm Project is located in inner-city Oakland California, where she grew up. After service in the Navy she returned home with a conviction to give back to her predominately African-American neighborhood. I met Carlisle over dinner at EcoFarm, where she told me how she discovered the extent to which city-raised children who visit her farm are disconnected from their food. One day she watched as a little girl was trying very hard to lift a rooted cabbage from the ground. Carlisle asked the child what she was doing; her answer was that she was trying to get the cabbage off of the ground, because it obviously didn’t belong there. She had no idea that cabbages grow from a plant in the soil!

A Small Organization Working Quietly Behind the Scenes

The Farmer Veteran Coalition is a small non-profit with a single office in Davis with five full time staff members, up from just three last year. They don’t have the ability for extensive outreach so they rely on word of mouth for veterans to contact them about their programs. Until they build up their funding, this scale is appropriate for the number of vets they are currently able to assist. Their funding is primarily from private sources, and as Ritthaler told me, they “don’t have federal funds that support the organization”, only limited USDA money designated for specific programs. When I asked about other similar programs for vets, Ritthaler said that of the groups that offer assistance to vets for farm careers, FVC is most comprehensive.

And indeed, FVC appears to go the distance on behalf of veterans. In addition to their other programs, the FVC is seeking funds to build a Farm Emergency Fund to provide financial assistance to farmer veterans and their families in emergencies. They also have a small grants program, the Fellowship Fund. The Fund assists veterans that are beginning a career in food and farming with small grants to be used for education or farming. The Fellowship Fund can also assist farmer veterans who are expanding their business, and help with buying equipment, assistance with certifications, or with purchasing building materials and labor.

We can thank our veterans for their service to our country; now we can be thankful that they are willing to be our farmers.

There is more interest in food now than at any point in our nation’s history. We have more standards with which to make conscious food choices than ever before. Yet while people want to know where their food is grown, how it’s grown, and when it was harvested, no one is really asking any questions beginning with “who”. Despite this tremendous interest in food, there is almost no interest in the people that pick it.

When I discovered these contradictions in my own life, I realized that I needed to make a film that would discuss these issues.

Farm workers have historically been amongst the most vulnerable people in America. Though the human rights issues are now mired in a debate on immigration status, farm workers have always been subjected to exploitation. From those who were Native Americans, European indentured servants and African slaves to sharecroppers, White migrants, Asians and now Latinos, farm workers have faced abuses ranging from verbal and sexual harassment to wage theft and slavery.

I saw these contradictions first hand last summer on a drive from Naples to Orlando, from one of the richest cities in the country, on roads that passed through some of the poorest. The segregation was striking. Latino towns of farmworkers had facilities equivalent to those African American towns had under Jim Crow. In fact, I learned, many of these farmworker towns were once predominantly African American. I could have very well been in 1911 rather than 2011.

Segregation is hardly an uncommon occurrence in our nation. What was striking was the fact that this segregation still existed in agriculture despite the level of consumer interest and awareness.

My realization was compounded by the fact that I was raised in the industry. My father was an executive at a large vegetable company and a plant breeder, and I spent summers on farms. I knew the where, whens and hows of the food industry. I couldn’t believe, though, that I of all people never asked “Who?”

My film, Food Chain, started in order to answer this question. Over eight months I traveled the U.S. with a crew of filmmakers to profile the people that pick our food. The more we learned of their stories and the regular exploitation they faced, the more we questioned our food system.

We met people who were freed from forced labor in Florida. We met a mother whose child was born without arms and legs because she was acutely exposed to pesticides while pregnant. We met workers whose bosses paid them less than half of the minimum wage for doing backbreaking work in 100 degree heat.

The deeper we explored the oppression, however, the more we became attracted by the possibilities of transformation. We began to meet a number of extremely powerful people in the farmworker community, workers that embraced their duty in the food chain while lashing back at the subjugation they experienced.

Some groups, like the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, continue to change the structure of the food chain itself, going straight to consumers of the top purchasers like McDonalds and Trader Joe’s to demand an increase in wages and working conditions.

We learned that the policies of the large buyers, in particular the supermarkets, are at the heart of the problems workers face. Supermarkets are no different from other multibillion dollar corporations. They dominate agribusiness and either know of the violations at its base or enjoy a willful ignorance. Food justice begins with a transformation of the grocery industry.

With the help the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, the Florida Farmworkers Association, the UFW, Eric Schlosser, Dolores Huerta, Hilda Solis, Barbara Lee, Barry Estabrook, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and others we found the answers we sought.

To change our food system, we don’t just need conscious consumers. We need conscious citizens. We need to organize and support worker-led movements like the CIW and demand structural changes of an industry that has resisted change for centuries.

There are many problems we face in our nation that will be very very difficult to solve. We learned, however, that this is not one of them.

We hope you will join us by supporting our film Food Chain on Kickstarter.

Food Chain Teaser from Sanjay Rawal on Vimeo.

When we think about the people behind our food, the familiar faces at the farmers market may readily come to mind. But the many other individuals who do the hard work of planting, growing, and harvesting that food may remain only a distant picture for us. These agricultural workers, who often have specialized skills and many years of experience, are generally among the least recognized and respected members of our food system.

As socially conscious eaters know, farmworkers are excluded from federal labor laws that guarantee the right to organize and, in some cases, they are not afforded basic protections such as minimum wage, overtime pay, and workers’ compensation. According to the US Department of Labor, three-fourths of agricultural workers earn less than $10,000 annually. At many farms, the employment terms are not spelled out on paper, leaving even greater room for abuses. People of color and undocumented workers fare the worst in this system. Even on organic farms, although workers are exposed to fewer toxic chemicals, the labor conditions aren’t necessarily much better.

As recently reported in Grist, however, a growing “domestic fair trade” movement aims to formally recognize and reward farms that are working to address social justice. The Agricultural Justice Project (AJP) has developed a set of fair labor guidelines under the Food Justice Certified label, which was born out of dissatisfaction with the US National Organic Program’s failure to address workers’ dignity and rights.

While more than 70 Canadian farms are Food Justice Certified, only eight in the United States have received certification. There is now a burgeoning effort to bring the label to California, with Santa Cruz County-based strawberry grower Swanton Berry Farm among those leading the way.

Farming with Dignity

Last week, the AJP conducted a certification training at Swanton Berry Farm for representatives from such organizations as California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF) and Líderes Campesinas. Over the last few years, Swanton has been a testing ground for the Food Justice Certified program, providing input as AJP has developed their standards.

“They (Swanton) have put a lot of attention into making the relationship between the farmers and managers and the people who work on the farm different from what you so often see in agriculture,” says AJP co-founder Elizabeth Henderson, who helped lead the training.

As the first organic farm to sign a contract with the United Farm Workers of America, the nation’s largest farm labor union, Swanton has is considered a model of fair agricultural labor practices. Workers are guaranteed a decent pay scale as well as benefits such as health insurance, a retirement plan, and paid time off, plus access to affordable housing. The farm helps workers avoid repetitive strain injuries (the most common type of injuries in agriculture) by offering a variety of work. In addition, Swanton makes an effort to involve workers in business decisions. Swanton was also the first farm to offer its employees the opportunity to own own stock in the company.

While the farm still has some work to do before they can brandish the Food Justice Certified label, co-owner Sandy Brown says that they are firmly committed to the process. “We think it’s a worthwhile investment because it helps us think through our management systems,” she notes. “It’s another set of eyes looking at the operation and helping us figure out how to do a better job.”

Certification requires both a third-party certifier and a worker organization to conduct interviews and verify that employers’ claims are true. From the initial assessment to the final audit, the whole process can take about a year. If CCOF signs on as a certifier, they plan to offer Food Justice Certification as an adjunct to their organic inspection, making the process less onerous and costly for cash-strapped organic farmers.

“It’s a time commitment, and it’s a financial commitment,” admits Brown. “Farms are busy, just trying to get through the day, and it’s hard to think about adding more on.”

Despite the red tape, Brown feels that the Food Justice Certified label offers the best package for socially conscious farms and eaters. “There are plenty of certification programs that don’t really do much,” she continues. “One of the reasons we’ve stuck with AJP is they have incorporated into their program the idea that workers’ ability to exercise a collective voice is critical to the enforcement of fair labor standards.”

Building Momentum

To share the costs of getting the certification program up and running in California, it will take a team of dedicated stakeholders. AJP and Swanton have participated in outreach to regional farms and organizations to build awareness about the program, but Brown admits that they have much more work to do in order to achieve a critical mass. “A lot of farms don’t see the need because there isn’t a whole lot of consumer demand,” Brown observes.

For eaters who want to see the Food Justice Certified label, she recommends opening a conversation with farmers, food vendors, grocery stores, and restaurants, as well as reaching out to organizations invested in sustainable agriculture. Getting buy-in from all levels of the food chain, particularly institutional and retail purchasers, is crucial. “The good news is there’s growing interest in the social relations of organic production and agriculture in general,” she adds.

But the onus does not rest solely on farmers, many of whom struggle to make a living themselves. “The biggest hurdle is the United States’ cheap food policy,” says Henderson. “People are used to paying low prices for food. There’s constant downward pressure on farms and food businesses, and as a result, the people who do the basic work aren’t paid well.”

For AJP, the ultimate goal is to transform not just labor on farms but all aspects of the food system, which represents 20 million workers, most of whom are among the lowest paid in our workforce. They hope to expand the program by working with organizations such as Restaurant Opportunities Centers United and Food Chain Workers Alliance.

While creating a socially just food system is a long row to hoe, Henderson sees the Food Justice Certified label as an important first step. By offering tools and support for farmers to evaluate and improve their labor policies, the AJP intends to raise awareness about the vital role workers play in a sustainable food system.

“Our emphasis is on changing the relationship, so that people who do this work are treated with respect and have decent standards of living,” she says. “Farm work is wonderful work, and it is absolutely necessary to the human race.”

Originally published by CUESA

Photo courtesy of Swanton Berry Farm

When I was in undergrad in the Northeast, around 15 years ago, a degree in “Food Studies” was unheard of.  A campus farm or edible garden was something reserved for agriculture schools or off-campus hippie/granola enclaves. However, the past 5  years have shown a proliferation of opportunities to get trained as farmers, gardeners, food policy makers, and food law practitioners.

On a recent site visit to Portland, Oregon, I met with FoodCorps service site supervisor Caitlin Blethen and her service member Jessica Polledri. Caitlin told me about her local program that trains school garden coordinators. This signaled to me a similar kind of sea change. It indicated that there is a desire out there to be trained in this work, and that there is a (slowly) growing market of jobs being created to do this work. I’ll let Jessica—a graduate of the program– take it from here:

Sometimes, pieces just fall into place. Soon after I moved across the country to Portland, Oregon, I heard about something called the School Garden Coordinator Certificate Training course (SGCCT), a 35-hour course offered by Growing Gardens, a local nonprofit.

I didn’t know something like this existed, and I applied for the course in the hopes that I could climb out of an illustrious past in retail work and unpaid internships. I crossed my fingers, was accepted, and propelled myself into the career track that I didn’t even realize was a career track.

That’s because it’s relatively new: school gardens date back to World War I–when the national school garden program was called, aptly I think, the United States School Garden Army–but have only recently enjoyed a resurgence. Gardens are growing in schoolyards all over the country, a trend that is highlighted by the recent inception of FoodCorps, a national organization dedicated to building and tending school gardens, providing hands-on nutrition education, and bringing high-quality local food into school cafeterias (full disclosure: I am a FoodCorps service member currently serving with Growing Gardens).

For over a decade, Growing Gardens has been steadily building its youth programming but recognized that the need for school gardens was outweighing the organization’s capacity. In an effort to keep the school garden movement blossoming in Portland, they decided to develop and offer the training. Nationwide, there are precious few school garden coordinator training programs: it is possible that Growing Gardens’ SGCCT was, in 2009, the very first.

Growing Gardens’ Youth Grow Manager, Caitlin Blethen, put the course together using her experience working in the field as a garden educator. Over the course’s 35 learning hours, Blethen and a host of guest speakers cover developing a master plan, community organizing, teaching students in a school garden setting, how to connect school garden activities and lessons to the curriculum, and planning a planting calendar, among other topics. To sweeten the deal even more, SGCCT students can opt to receive continuing education credits from Portland State University, an incentive for current teachers and graduate-degree seekers alike.

Though locally directed–speakers include Michelle Markesteyn Ratcliffe, the Oregon Farm to School Program Manager; and there is a special evening class dedicated to understanding the procedures that surround using garden produce in Portland Public Schools cafeterias–the skills taught are universal.

Graduates of the program have gone on to great things: There has been a steady stream of graduates stopping by the Growing Gardens office to peruse our seed library for flowers and vegetables for their new–and thriving–school gardens. Two graduates applied for and received a lucrative grant to get their garden project off the ground. We get constant feedback on how integral certain topics (creating a garden committee, working with school custodial staff, writing mission and vision statements) really were to the graduates’ success. And this particular graduate can ensure you that the course got her exactly where she had hoped to be.

Jessica Polledri is a FoodCorps service member in Portland Oregon, serving under the Oregon Department of Agriculture, with Growing Gardens.

I have a weird fascination with inventions, and often wonder what the beginning of something was. What led to someone coming up with stained glass? Or what about an alarm clock? These are simple creations that pale in comparison with even more complex items that we also use without much thought…dishwashers? Copy machines? This computer? Maybe I should have pursued a career in engineering, but more likely my preoccupation with these inventions is due to the fact that I have little understanding of them. It seems that that disconnect between the things we use and depend on and how they function leads to a pretty common level of frustration. The rise in DIY projects and interest that we are seeing these days surely has to do with that frustration leading to a push for self-reliance.

I think it also has to do with a larger disconnect, one that has moved us away from community minded information sharing and collaboration. We have less and less opportunity in this modern world to wave down a neighbor with a question about chicken husbandry or how to fix a broken well pump. Instead, we jump on the Internet and Google the answer, hoping that the source we choose to trust is reputable and fact-based. The National Young Farmers’ Coalition (NYFC) has launched a project for the today’s sustainable farming community that brings the best of both worlds together. FarmHack taps the same age-old premise of learning directly from others in a similar community while creating innovative open source sharing technologies to reach small farmers around the globe.

Co-Founder of FarmHack, Severine von Tscharner Flemming (and Founder of The Greenhorns), says that the idea “grew out of a frustration of using 1940’s tractors that were busted” and then finding that the new technology available to fix or replace them was based on chemical and energy dependent industries, not ecological stewardship. “FarmHack is a core complement to reclaiming a more bio-intensive, resilient, prosperous, locally oriented, appropriate scale to farming,” she says, and it is driven by the needs of farmers but built by reciprocal relationships among people with various applicable skill sets. That means, not only farmers but hackers, makers, engineers, even robot builders; all becoming allies in developing opportunities to monetize ideas, create commerce, and to share blueprints for the future.

This Tools Repository on the newly revamped website features clear descriptions, plans and instruction on creating or fixing a variety of implements. It can be utilized and contributed to by anyone who may have more information about any particular item. Although it is still in Beta mode, this development offers tons of potential in assisting folks trying to fix, make or find certain farm tools and innovations. What started with solar tractors moved into wool and chicken processing equipment, then led to securing a grant that will create technology for text messages to be sent when your greenhouse gets too hot. One of the newest inventions shared a recent FarmHack event was a bike powered root washer.

Mainly, though, the key issue to what NYFC and FarmHack are working towards is that a new generation of farmers step up to the plate. It is essential that we have capable, viable, passionate people growing our food who in turn, encapsulate those very same traits into what we eat. There are so many hurdles in the way, from funding to policy to access, that make these kind of collaborative sharing networks that much more important as we look ahead. In essence, as Severine points out, FarmHack “is also a cultural project of re-evaluating what is valuable…to rebuild our economy.”

Perhaps no one represented the American work ethic more than the dairy farmer. Early morning hours and hard physical labor, often conducted in solitude while ankle deep in muck. Families working together to get the job done. They have long proudly supplied a demand for their community, and like most farmers, are clearly not in it for the money.

Today however, the American dairy farmer also represents the frustration and economic hardship evident across our nation. Increasing volatility in the price of milk paid to farmers, higher feed costs, corporate consolidation in the supply chain, organic milk farms scaling up, and questionable government policies all have farmers shedding a few tears. The life is so unappealing that the number of American families remaining in milk farming has plummeted from roughly 165,000 20 years ago, to less than 50,000 today.

Behind the innocent glass of milk lies an intriguing story that’s not so black and white: Many farmers are losing money, organic milk is in short supply,  anti-trust lawsuits have been filed, and legislative reform is on the agenda. Farmers, processors, distributors, and retailers are engaged in conversations like never before. And cows. Don’t forget about the cows.

Please join us for the next Kitchen Table Talks in San Francisco on Tuesday, February 21 from 6:30 – 8:30 pm at 18 Reasons, as we discuss the current state of the organic dairy industry.

When: Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Time: Food and drink at 6:30. Discussion from 7 – 8:30 pm
Where: 18 Reasons (3674 18th St., San Francisco, 94110)
Tickets: $10 Brown Paper Tickets. NOTE: A limited number of sliding scale tickets will be available on a first come, first serve basis at 7 pm on the night of the event.

Joining us in conversation will be:

Leslie Butler, Department of Agricultural Economics at U.C. Davis. Leslie holds a Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics from Michigan State University. He regularly testifies at state and national hearings regarding dairy policy, and has published numerous articles on dairy production and economics marketing and policy.

Mike Griffin, West Region Pool Manager, Organic Valley. Mike was born and raised in Petaluma, CA. After his first year of college, he began his journey into farming, and never looked back. His vast  experience over 30 years at Clover Stornetta as a truck driver, distribution foreman, plant manager and in public relations, ultimately led him to Organic Valley in 2011, the nation’s largest cooperative of organic farmers.

Richard Hughes, owner Westfield Jersey’s in Bodega, CA. Richard was a self-proclaimed “city boy,” until he turned 15 and a 4-H project began his life long journey and commitment to dairy farming.  In 1976, Richard and his wife purchased a 182-acre ranch just outside of Bodega. They currently have around 100 Jersey cows, have completed the transition to organic farming, and provide milk to Straus Family Creamery.

Bob McGee, CFO/COO Straus Family Creamery, Marshall, CA.

Kitchen Table Talks is a joint venture of Civil Eats and 18 Reasons, a non-profit that promotes conversation between its San Francisco Mission neighborhood and the people who feed them. Space is limited, so please RSVP. Seasonal snacks and refreshments generously provided by Bi-Rite Market and Shoe Shine Wine.

When Jesse Kuhn started Marin Roots Farm at age 28, he already had dirt under his fingernails. He’d studied ag in college, managed a student farm, and worked as a landscaper. But when it came to succeeding financially in the farming business, he had a long way to go. “I was charging up my credit cards like crazy and bouncing balances back and forth,” he says. “I almost had to declare bankruptcy during the first year.”

Almost 10 years and many lessons later, Marin Roots is a well-established organic specialty produce business. “It’s a lot of people’s dream to live off the land, but the reality of it is, you have to have a plan for how you’re going to pay the bills,” says Kuhn.

His journey is not unlike that of many beginners who are eager to try their hand at farming but don’t yet have all the necessary skills and resources. In a recent report titled Building a Future with Farmers, the National Young Farmers’ Coalition (NYFC) surveyed 1,000 young and beginning farmers across the US and found that access to land, capital, health care, credit, and business training posed huge challenges.

“What’s different for young and first-career farmers is that they don’t have a lot of equity,” says Severine von Tscharner Fleming, a young farmer in New York’s Hudson Valley who is also co-chair of NYFC and director of The Greenhorns, a film and nonprofit organization that advocates for young farmers. “You see a lot of student debt. Farming is a high-capital industry—an industry that really needs us, but we’re walking in without any cash.” 

Green Thumbs To Greenhorn

Kuhn’s path to farming started as a child in San Geronimo, where he had little exposure to agriculture but picked up a passion for gardening from his grandmother. “She had two green thumbs for sure, and I learned from that,” says Kuhn. When he went to Humboldt State, he joined their new agriculture program and studied permaculture on the side. He also took time off from school to work at an organic soil company and contemplate career paths.

After college he started farming a small one-acre plot, using the model he’d learned on the student farm, but realized the operation was more like a hobby farm than a viable business. So he worked as a landscaper while farming small plots in friends’ backyards, which eventually helped him build the courage to take the leap into full-time farming.

He took out a “land wanted” ad in the Press Democrat and, after receiving a number of responses, settled on a 15-acre agricultural plot on a goat dairy ranch near Petaluma. But there were setbacks infrastructure-wise, such as having to install a new irrigation system, and Kuhn began charging up his credit cards. Right when he was about to declare bankruptcy, a low-interest beginning farmer loan through the USDA Farm Service Agency came through. He was able to buy a tractor, a delivery truck, and seeds.

Through much experimentation, Kuhn found his niche growing organic specialty crops such as baby greens, roots, beans, and summer squash for farmers markets and grocery stores, restaurants, and wholesalers. “A lot of the products I was selling weren’t standardized because I was doing open-pollinated varieties, but there was certainly a market for that,” he says. He now employs a handful of full-time market and field staff.

Kuhn has had to learn much through trial by fire, particularly the organizational side of growing a successful business. He’s found support in his family (his mother helps with accounting, and his father is on call as farm mechanic), as well as in other Marin farmers and the Bay Area farmers market community. “It’s definitely tough farming,” he says. “The farmers market has been a great support network for me, meeting up with the other farmers every week, bouncing ideas off each other, seeing what they’re bringing to market, and getting their advice.”

Growing Roots

Kuhn is still a young farmer by national standards, which place the average farmer at 57. The USDA estimates that 500,000 US farmers (about one-quarter) will retire by 2030, leaving a large gap for the next generation to fill. “We have ever older farmers and ever fewer people who are growing our food,” says Fleming. “I think young farmers are especially well poised to address food security and the re-regionalization of our food system.”

As a result of the Building a Future with Farmers study, the NYFC has proposed a policy agenda including recommendations such as improving credit and savings opportunities, addressing land access and affordability issues, legalizing farm apprenticeships, and expanding training programs. (For more about legal issues related to apprenticeships, see The Farm Intern Conundrum.)

The NYFC study underscores the viability of direct marketing as a start-up strategy for new farmers, with 61 percent of their respondents selling at farmers markets and 49 percent through CSAs. “Helping young farmers means reorienting our food systems so that we’re not just supporting producers who are growing commodity crops and abandoning the small- and medium-scale producers who are more than likely selling directly to the marketplace,” says Fleming.

For aspiring greenhorns, Kuhn recommends getting a job or volunteering on a farm in order to get to know the business. When taking the plunge into starting your own farm, he emphasizes finding the right piece of land, with infrastructure already in place, and developing a niche.

But despite the challenges he’s encountered along the way, Kuhn loves what he does. “Being able to wake up on the farm is incredible,” he says. “And it’s rewarding to go to the farmers market and meet the people who are going to be eating my food.”

Photo: Gary Yost. Chart by the National Young Farmers Coalition.

Originally published on CUESA