The National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture, under award number Grant #2012-49400-19673 funded HMI’s 2015 Beginning Farmers & Ranchers: Women in the NE & Texas program. We recently completed evaluation of the New York program which was coordinated by Sarah Williford through Central NY RC&D. Instructors for this program included Phil Metzger, Erica Frenay, and Elizabeth Marks. Mentors for the program were Elizabeth Bunce, Tanya Moyer, and Alicia Purzycki. There was 94% satisfaction rating for the program overall by participants with a 92% satisfaction rating for the state coordinator and a 74% satisfaction rating for the mentors. Thanks to the USDA/NIFA Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development program for their support of this program.
Here’s what we’ve learned from our 18 New York participants, of which 15 graduated from the program:
Participant Demographic Information
Of the 10 participants responding
6 are currently farming and all participants said they intend to continue to farm or will start farming
The average years of farming was 3 years
The average age of the participants was 38 (range: 21 to 61 years old)
The average acres under production was 10 acres under production with a total of 80 acres influenced.
The race the participants reported was: 60% Anglo, 1 % Hispanic, and 1% Asian
The types of farm operations were as follows: Cattle/Cow/Calf (2), Vegetables/Fruit/Produce (7), Poultry/Eggs (2), Sheep (1), and Hay (1)
The total customers of all participants was 70.
I will be making more use of formal resources like professional services of willing friends in planning
I liked the on farm site visits
I got encouragement when struggling and gained new knowledge
Awesome reminder about the sorts of things that deserve to be included in my farm goals
I learned how to turn farm goals into systems
I learned how much more I still need to learn, and that I still want to! It helps to break down things for better understanding.
The testing questions were useful to evaluate and make informed decision.
I have a better understanding of the relationship between forage animal #s and # of paddock.
Better understanding of calculating animal units stockpile
The most important thing I learned was enterprise budgets and net worth. Thank you!
I learned to separate personal from farm assets, liabilities, etc
I was fun working with small groups.
Learning about the ecosystem processes - improve one, you improve them all.
The quadrant for time management is outstanding.