If you are an agricultural educator in the Northeast (NY, PA, NH, VT, CT, MA, ME, DE, MD, NJ, RI, WV, DC), a new Whole Farm Planning program is starting in December and is fully funded by a grant from Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (NE SARE). The Center for Agricultural Development and Entrepreneurship (CADE) is collaborating with HMI on this program and training programs will be taught by Holistic Management educators from that region. To learn more about the program and how to apply, contact Sarah Williford at (845) 264-2401, [email protected]. Application deadline is November 20th.
This Whole Farm Planning Training Program is a unique opportunity for all agricultural educators interested in expanding their skills and expertise for their farmer clientele.
Whole farm planning is essential for many farmers looking to expand, diversify, transfer assets to the next generation, and improve environmental conditions and, importantly, increase farm profitability.
Unique to the whole farm planning process is learning how to manage your values, resources, and business holistically. Each topic is interconnected just like life!
About the Project
From 2005-2012, Northeast SARE funded 25 Ag service providers in Whole Farm Planning training. Participants reported that they and their clients were helped tremendously in diversification, conservation, and income goals. Seeing a need for more Whole Farm Planning Training for Ag Service Providers, CADE and Holistic Management International applied for SARE funding to carry out a new round of training. This training is tailored specifically to meet farmer educators professional development goals.
We invite anyone who works directly with farmers to enroll in this educational opportunity.
Course Details
Whole Farm Planning guides farmers through specific processes to improve on-farm decision making, increase farm efficiency, develop communication skills, enhance profitability, and ensure environmental conditions on farms.
This 3-year program will involve 3 in-person sessions, each lasting 2.5 days. And 2, once-a-week webinars for 4 weeks. The first in person sessions will be held in December 2017, the second session in November 2018 and the third session in November 2019. The first 4-week webinar series will be in Feb-March 2018, the second in Feb-March 2019. The sessions will focus on:
- farm/family goal setting
- farm resource delineation
- on-farm decision making
- farm financial planning & analysis
- farm design with land & infrastructure planning
- business & marketing
- leadership & labor management
All expenses for the training will be paid through this Northeast SARE Professional Development Grant. Covered expenses include travel, room and board, and supplies and materials. Additionally, a program mentor will support participants through communication on monthly conference calls and via email.
Participants will be required to attend all 3 in-person sessions and 8 webinars and commit to working with at least 5 farms between sessions to implement the knowledge and skills gained during their training. Participants who are also farmers may use their farm as one of the five required.
Twenty-five participants will be accepted for this training. The training is targeted at Agriculture Service Providers in Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia, and Washington, D.C.
For more information about the program or for an application, contact Sarah Williford at (845) 264-2401, [email protected]
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Adelene is a resident of Arkansas and loves exploring the state’s natural trails. Her passion for education and technology led her to earn a master’s in learning systems technology from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. With her professional experience managing student/client databases and instructional design, Adelene will bring skill and understanding to her role as Office Manager & Instructional Designer at HMI. Her focus on making education more accessible to diverse communities is evident through her volunteer work as an board member for a scholarship program. Adelene is devoted to creating educational opportunities that align with HMI’s mission to promote healthy, resilient lands and thriving communities.
Seth Wilner has been a Holistic Management International Certified Educator since 2005. For 22 years he has worked as an agent educator with University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension where he specializes in farm business management with an emphasis on whole farm planning.
Dana was first introduced to Holistic Management in the 1990s while working in the Texas Hill Country. She strongly believes that Holistic Management can positively impact families that are on the land, the communities they are a part of, and larger landscape resource regeneration efforts.
Sarah Robertson grew up in Taos, New Mexico and has always been passionate about land stewardship, growing things, and nurturing others. After completing a BA in Communication from the University of New Mexico and working with local non-profits, she started her journey as a first-generation farmer. Since 2015, she has been learning and growing alongside her husband on various leased properties in Albuquerque, NM and running a small market farm with goats, chickens, and a CSA. In her role as Programs Assistant at HMI, Sarah brings her enthusiasm for regenerative agriculture, devotion to supporting others, and drive for lifelong learning and growing.
Jozua Lambrecht is from South Africa and divides his time between their home in Somerset West and their family farm in Sutherland, one of the coldest places in South Africa, where they farm with sheep. He is married to his wife Therese and they have two daughters.
Alejandro Carrillo is a fourth-generation rancher, and he is quite familiar with the challenges of running a profitable cattle ranch in the Chihuahuan desert. Because annual precipitation seldom exceeds nine inches, every drop counts when it comes to growing more grasses. Grazing year-round with only sea salt as an input, he is not willing to waste any water in such a brittle environment.
Jared L Talley was born and raised in Southwestern Idaho and now seeks to help rural communities adapt and thrive in a rapidly changing world. He is an Assistant Professor in the School of Public Service at Boise State University, earning his PhD in Philosophy from Michigan State University and his MPA in Environmental Policy and Natural Resource Management from Boise State University. An environmental philosopher by training and an interdisciplinary scholar in practice, he seeks to better understand how communities relate to the land and how this relationship poses obstacles and opportunities for collaboration and governance. In doing so, he studies the role of science in collaborative policy, the role of place in environmental identity, and the role of the imagination in mediating both. Specifically, he studies grazing management and public land permitting, community-led conservation programs, rural education and entrepreneurship, place-based environmental governance, and the imaginative experience of our natural and built environments — all in the contexts of the intermountain American West.
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