2014 Texas Beginning Women Farmer Program Results

HMI’s 2014 Beginning Farmers & Ranchers: Women in the NE & Texas program funded by the USDA/NIFA Beginning Farmer/Rancher Development Program, has been going full steam through the winter and spring with some states beginning to wrap up. The Texas program coordinated by HMI’s Program Manager, Peggy Cole, completed all 10 sessions by the end of February. Lead instructor was Certified Educator Peggy Sechrist and mentors for the program were Tracy Litle, Lauri Celella, Kathy Harris, Pam Mitchell, Lauren Bradbury, and Katherine Napper. We’ve been busy entering the data and crunching the numbers. For the full report, go to the HMI blog to read more. Here’s what we’ve learned from our 32 Texas participants who graduated:

Demographics

• 22 are currently farming

• The average years of farming was  4 years (range: 1 – 10 years)

• The average acres under production was 253 acres under production (range: 0.5 – 1900 acres)

• The average age was 52 years old (range: 28 to 67 years old)

• The race the participants reported was: 21 Anglo, 2 Hispanic, and 1 Native American, and 2 other

• The types of farm operations were as follows:

o   Cattle/Cow/Calf (13), Vegetable/Fruit/Produce (13), Poultry (4), Dairy (2), Lamb (6), Goat (1), Pecans (1), Hay (1), Sorghum (1), Aquaponic (1), Agritourism (2).

• The total customers of all participants: Retail – Average 52 (total 623); Wholesale – Average  2 (total 19)

• Increased net income as a result of this training 71%

• Intend to keep farming 100%

• Overall satisfaction with program 100%

 Results