Farmer Resource Library

New Entry's farmer library has hundreds of resources on sustainable farming, marketing, and operating a successful small business. Our physical library at our office in Beverly, MA contains books, CD's, DVD's periodicals, pamphlets, and videos in English, Spanish, Hmong, and Khmer. You can also search the directory below for downloadable digital resources, helpful web sites, and online farming videos.

Please visit or email us at nesfp@tufts.edu if you can't find what you're looking for here. Sometimes we are out in the field, so it's best to let us know if you're planning on stopping by.

Basic Business Planning and Recordkeeping NIFTI 2015

Media:

  • Digital Download

A presentation on Basic Business Planning and Recordkeeping given by Gary Matteson of Farm Credit at the 2015 NIFTI National Field School. Additional resources available at farmbiztrainer.com.

 

Do you have a good understanding of what your students are going through from their perspective?  Students need to appreciate the core components of good business planning and why it is important to their success before they will latch onto the “numbers” that they generally try to avoid.  This session will include tips on how to integrate financial skills training and record keeping into all the skills your program is already teaching, with the end goal of helping farmers be business minded in their operations.

BCS Safety Checklist

Media:

  • Digital Download

The BCS Safety Checklist and Parts Diagram is a resource designed to be incorporated into a field workshop to train multi-farming and language/literacy farmers how to safely operate and maintain a BCS machine and roto-tiller attachment. This resource should be used by staff as a guide to teach farmers during a workshop, but can also stand alone as a handout or sign after an initial workshop. Staff will use hands-on demonstration to show farmers how to operate machines and attachments.

Bean Pests

Media:

  • Digital Download

Shell beans are an important crop to farmers, but (and because of how much they are grown) they face significant pest pressure on the farm. We worked with our local extension agent to put together accurate, useful, and accessible organic management options for the two most important pests on our farm: Mexican bean beetle and leaf hopper.

Bed Planning Tool

Media:

  • Digital Download

This Bed Planning tool is used to assist farmers in knowing which crops to plant in each bed and when to plant them. Each bed marker is filled out either by staff ahead of time, or by farmers in a class session using their crop calendars and crop rotation plot maps. The bed markers are then placed in each bed at the farm. This tool was developed to increase farmer independence through simple tools, as farmers were not consulting their notebooks weekly and/or had difficulty reading their crop calendars throughout the season. You can add cover crop rotations, succession planting, and multiseason planting. Using these tools allows farmers to quickly look at the upcoming dates, prepare their beds, and plant their seeds in the right bed and at the right time. They are laminated and tape is used for writing in permanent marker (on top of tape), so that they can be recycled and used year after year.

Best Practices in New American Farmer Training

Media:

  • Digital Download

These best practices are the result of a collaborative process between ten New American farmer training programs. Over a three year period, these programs implemented new teaching resources and methods. These practices represent effective and relevant teaching practices for farmer training with farmers with educationally and linguistically diverse backgrounds

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