HMI’s 2015 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 Holistic Management Certified Educator Peggy Sechrist and mentors for the program were Tracy Litle, Lauri Celella, Kathy Harris, Pam Mitchell, Lauren Bradbury, and Katherine Napper, and CD Pounds. We’ve been busy entering the data and crunching the numbers. Thanks to the USDA/NIFA BFRDP for their support of this program.
Here’s what we’ve learned from our 33 Texas participants who graduated:
Demographics
Of the 28 participants responding
27 are currently farming and all plan to continue farming
The average years of farming was 4 years (range: 0.2 to 9 years)
The average acres under production was 89 acres under production (range: 0.5 to 500 acres) with a total of 2569 under production
The average age was 47 years old (range: 24 to 75 years old)
The total retail customers of all participants was : 624 and 18 wholesale customers
33 participants were trained and 32 graduated for a 97% graduation rate
Overall satisfaction of the program was an average of 94%