Small Farms Update is intended as a resource for farmers and agricultural service providers in New York, and is provided to you by Cornell’s Small Farms Program. Our mission is to foster the sustainability of diverse, thriving small farms that contribute to food security, healthy rural communities, and the environment.
Read the October 15th online, or download it as
a WORD document.
Sign Up
for Monthly Update E-mail
Monthly Update Archive
View all press releases for 2009
Press Release Archive: 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005
| 2004 | 2003
| 2002
Most Recent Press Release:
Posted November 2, 2009
A three-year, $750,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Beginning Farmers and Ranchers Development Program will help Cornell University’s Small Farms Program (SFP) broaden its support for new farmers in the Northeast.
“Demand for local foods has created new market opportunities for farmers with both large and small operations,” says Erica Frenay, project coordinator of the SFP’s N.Y. Beginning Farmer Project. (www.nybeginningfarmers.org). “Many new farmers with little or no agricultural experience want to tap this growing market, but face daunting barriers. Our team is here to help.”
Some of the barriers beginning and aspiring farmers face include limited access to training, capital, and land. The Small Farms Program, along with Cornell Cooperative Extension, targeted the first of these--training—by establishing the NY Beginning Farmer Project in 2006. Over 3 years, the project trained 362 new or aspiring farmers in basic farm planning and business management. “We’ve collected dozens of farm success stories from this effort, including new farms started, market channels expanded, and people who have quit their off-farm jobs to work on the farm,” says Anu Rangarajan, Director of the Cornell Small Farms Program. The project also developed new information resources, like the Guide to Farming in NY, a set of fact sheets on the legal and regulatory aspects of farming. And, the project established a Beginning Farmer contact in every Cornell Cooperative Extension office, to help new farmers know who to call. A link to this list is on the homepage of the Cornell Small Farms website at www.smallfarms.cornell.edu.
The infusion of funding from USDA will allow the NY Beginning Farmer Project to expand, drawing on the strengths of a diverse array of partner organizations in addition to Cornell Cooperative Extension: the Greenhorns (www.thegreenhorns.net - a national young farmers movement), NY Farm Viability Insitute (www.nyfvi.org), NOFA-NY (www.nofany.org), NY FarmNet and NY FarmLink (www.nyfarmnet.org and nyfarmlink.org), the Cornell Dept. of Education, NY Association of Ag Educators (http://www.nyag-ed.org), Heifer International (www.heifer.org), and a dozen non-profits from around the Northeast that train and support beginning farmers.
With this USDA funding, the Team will:
If you want to stay informed about our activities, please subscribe to the Small Farms Program's monthly e-newsletter at www.smallfarms.cornell.edu/pages/contact/newsletter.cfm
