New American Farmer Teaching Resources

These tools have brought together the best practices in the country for refugee and immigrant farmer education.”

-Nick Wuertz, Director of Refugee Community Services at Lutheran Services in Iowa

See and search the over 60 training and technical assistance (T&TA) resources (below), primarily for New American audiences and the programs that serve them. New Americans include refugees, asylees, and immigrants who are part of the current and next generation of beginning farmers in the U.S. and Canada.

This resource library is the result of a 3-year partnership between ISED Solutions and 18 beginning farmer incubators, through a Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program (BFRDP) Educational Enhancement initiative titled Educational Tools and Methods for Beginning Refugee & Immigrant Farmers. Our intent has been to develop and share resources that facilitate high quality instruction and hands-on assistance using a combination of carefully-designed tools and techniques. These resources can be freely downloaded and used as is, or adapted to meet the specific capacities and priorities of a specific program or setting. These teaching resources and handbook are appropriate to use with any beginning farmer audiences whose learning needs and styles vary because of education, language, literacy, and/or cultural factors. ISED expresses gratitude to all the partners who shared in the development of these resources. Individuals and organizations involved in specific resource development are identified within.

Record Keeping and Financial Planning

This is a one-hour reflection-based, hands-on workshop where most of the farmers’ learning will take place in pairs and in-response to reflection questions. This user’s guide will help trainers to lead this reflection session and how to use the reflection worksheet and PowerPoint. Cash flow is an important but sometimesdifficult concept, and is the primary focus of this lesson. This module is the last core module of the Financial Literacy curriculum, though you may choose to add an optional session on farm financing options. This teaching resource was developed by All Farmers in CT River Valley, MA in partnership with the Institute for Social and Economic Development (ISED Solutions). Refugee farmer training programs across the country provided feedback on this lesson, which is now integrated throughout the guide.

Food Safety

This users guide will help the trainer to deliver one 4-hour training session, or two 2-hour training sessions with staff and farmers. This training guide will support incubator farm staff as they prepare facilities to meet food safety standards and train farmers on food safety procedures. This teaching resource was developed by Global Growers in Atlanta, Georgia in partnership with the Institute for Social and Economic Development (ISED Solutions). Refugee farmer training programs across the country provided feedback on this lesson, which is now integrated throughout the guide.

Food Safety

Global Growers worked with a graphic designer to create a set of food safety signs geared toward beginning English and / or beginning literacy farmers. The signs are designed to indicate food safety protocols that are common to most vegetable production farms with a FSMA-compliant food safety program. FSMA requires certain signs around the farm, and these signs are designed to meet FSMA requirements, as well as be geared towards English language learning farmers. The signs can be printed and posted at a farm site, and they can also be used as visual teaching aids in a food safety workshop. There are two sets of signs included: one set has graphics and text, and a duplicate set has only graphics in case the text is confusing to preliterate or non-English speaking participants.

If these signs end up on any of your social media or you share them, please give credit to Sarah Lawrence and either tag her or share her contact info.  Or just send her a message to say how much you love them. Thanks!

yosarah8@gmail.com

http://www.sarahclawrence.com/

https://twitter.com/whiskeyfoxxtrot

https://www.instagram.com/whiskeyfoxxtrot/

Harvesting

Food Safety

This workshop gives the trainer an opportunity to explain what a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) is and walks through an SOP for when to wash your hands, how to wash your hands, and what produce to wash. It also introduces some common vocabulary around the wash station so that farmers and trainers can start to use the same language. The workshop goes on to set up a common harvest and post-harvest handling SOP for greens and for roots, which then can be hung up in the wash station to remind farmers of the proper SOP to follow.

Record Keeping and Financial Planning

Business Planning

This guide will help you use the ‘Income and Expenses Tool’ with farmers. The tool is an Excel spreadsheet, intended to be used one-on-one with a farmer and a program staff person. This tool can be used after a farmer has completed at least one selling season, or it can be used to make an estimated budget for the upcoming year. This teaching resource was developed by Global Gardens in Boise, Idaho in partnership with the Institute for Social and Economic Development (ISED Solutions). Refugee farmer training programs across the country provided feedback on this lesson, which is now integrated throughout the guide.

Marketing

Record Keeping and Financial Planning

This is a tangible structure tool to teach farmers in a one-on-one setting to manage established wholesale accounts. You will spend ~30 minutes introducing the farmer to the steps in selling to wholesale accounts, introducing them to the resource, how it is laid out, and how to use it. The rest of your time is supporting the farmer in hands-on practice with the resource until they have reached competency.

Organic Farming

This guide is an introduction to organic vs. conventional farming. PowerPoints and visuals are meant to reinforce learning as you facilitate discussion and activities. While this is written as one two-hour session, slides and activities can be used independently to suit programmatic needs. This teaching resource was developed by New Roots for Refugees, Catholic Charities of NE Kansas in partnership with the Institute for Social and Economic Development (ISED Solutions). Refugee farmer training programs across the country provided feedback on this lesson, which is now integrated throughout the guide.

Production Skills

This guide will assist trainers who want to teach non-literate and/or non-English speaking farmers about how to use irrigation to deliver the optimal amount of water for different weather conditions, soil types, specific crops, and stages of growth. It is especially appropriate for farmers from tropical and subtropical regions who must adapt traditional practices to temperate conditions. This teaching resource was developed by Katie Painter of Global Gardens Refugee Agriculture Program at the Idaho Office for Refugees, in partnership with the Institute for Social and Economic Development (ISED Solutions).

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