Growing Farmers for the Future
How the New Entry Sustainable Farming Project Supports Farmers, Food Security, and Communities
Editor’s Note: Ten years ago, I was privileged to work with the Organization for Refugee and Immigrant Success in support of their incubator farm project in Dunbarton, New Hampshire. I was very lucky to connect with the team and network of peers assembled at the New Entry Sustainable Farming Project. Through this, my colleagues and I had the chance to learn from others directly working to address cultural, economic, and social barriers that make it difficult to get started in farming.
Between managing their own incubator farm in Beverly, Massachusetts, developing and testing different models of farmer support and technical assistance, and convening a community of practice for land-based training programs around the country, New Entry has helped hundreds of organizations support thousands of new farmers since 1998. In our collective efforts to protect a landscape that sustains us, it is important to recognize that supporting new farmers in getting a foothold in agriculture needs to be a community-wide endeavor. Here, the team at New Entry outlines the challenges that face farmers today and shares what they do behind the scenes to help the next generation of growers get on the land.
- Alex Redfield
The Challenge of Getting Started in Agriculture
In 27 years of New Entry Sustainable Farming Project’s work to support beginning farmers, we have often heard some version of the “advice” that, if someone really wants to be a farmer, “tell them to go back in time and get born into a different family.” The truth in this dark humor hints at the many systemic barriers that make entry into agricultural livelihoods feel near impossible in the United States. Farming is a daunting, capital-intensive endeavor that requires access to land, infrastructure, tools, and markets. The commodification of land and foodways has a long and complicated history with white supremacy in the United States that still impacts farmers of color and their ability to access land and farm operating capital. It is rooted in settler-colonial power structures with Indigenous land loss, Japanese-American land loss to internment camps, discriminatory lending practices against farmers of color, land theft from Mexican farmers of the Southwest, and the prevention of equity building for African Americans post enslavement via share cropping practices, acts of race-based violence, and other nuanced policies such as heirs’ property. In addition to systemic racism, development pressures and the speculative land market in New England make land access incredibly difficult for all farmers. Meanwhile climate variability with drought and flooding, along with low profit margins, make it “financially impossible for most New England farmers to rely on producing food to earn a living,” a problem that New Entry Sustainable Farming Project (New Entry) works to address through land access support, risk management education, tailored technical assistance, and market channel development.
Incubating New Farms and Farmers
The average U.S. farmer is now 58 years old, and 70 percent of farmland will change hands in the next 20 years. We urgently need skilled, next-generation farmers to sustain our food systems. That is where New Entry jumps in—we “grow farmers for the future of New England’s food system.” By providing land, education, resources, and market support, we offer aspiring farmers a lower-risk opportunity to incubate their farm businesses as a first step to making the impossible more possible.
“The future of New England’s food system depends on our collective commitment to investing in the land, training, and support networks that empower the next generation of farmers—because growing farmers is as essential as growing food itself.”
For aspiring farmer Graham Ball, New Entry helped turn his farming dream into a reality. He had always been interested in farming, but balancing farming with a full-time job made it difficult to commit. Graham first read about New Entry in the Boston Globe in 2013, and, seven years later, when the pandemic shifted his work to a remote position, he finally dove into New Entry’s online courses. After completing the courses, he felt ready to break ground and start his farm, Ramblin Roots Market Garden, with partner Donna Diamond. Graham and Donna applied to New Entry’s Incubator Farm Training Program, one of the nation’s first such land-based training opportunities.
Graham Ball in the fields at New Entry’s Incubator Farm. Photo courtesy of New Entry Sustainable Farming Project
Launched in 1998 as a program of Tufts University’s Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, New Entry combines workshops, online training programs and an on-farm land-based experiential learning program (the incubator) to help beginning farmers grow and sustain farm businesses in New England. Online training programs chart a way to start a career in agriculture by showcasing what farming actually looks like, and by offering participants a strong foundation of core skills in crop production and business planning. Workshops connect new and experienced farmers around relevant issues like climate preparedness, disease management, and season extension. After completing a viable farm plan through New Entry’s Business Planning course, serious candidates, like Graham, are encouraged to apply for space at New Entry’s Incubator Farm, a 20-acre USDA Certified Organic property with 15 parcels allocated to offer participants land, infrastructure, technical assistance, and market avenues to implement their vision. The application process is simple: New Entry requires applicants to have completed its training programs, have drafted a viable farm plan including a projected cash flow sheet and a marketing and production plan, and to have explored how their farm plan fits with their skills and individual goals. Successful applicants join a cohort of peers working to grow their farms over a three-year period before they “graduate” to their own operations in the region.
Networks of Knowledge Exchange
Farm incubator programs are an effective intervention in this country’s crisis of aging farmers. Since New Entry piloted the model alongside other early programs like Agriculture & Land-Based Training Association (ALBA) in Salinas, California, and the Intervale Center in Burlington, Vermont, over 50 Incubator Farms are currently operating across the country. Programs differ greatly in funding, demographics served, program duration, and the nature of the support offered to participants. Incubator program sites commonly provide irrigation, greenhouses, coolers, produce wash stations, fencing, and tools for field preparation and maintenance. In 2011, New Entry worked with partner organizations to grow collective knowledge in this niche program realm and established the National Incubator Farm Training Initiative (NIFTI). The program has grown into a bustling community of practice that now includes farm and ranch apprenticeship training programs and other shared-use land access programs. Now called the Farm Incubation and Education through Land-based Skills Development (FIELD) Network, New Entry leads co-learning through resource creation, monthly networking sessions, and an annual gathering called the FIELD School to maximize the capacity for land-based training initiatives to help solve the aging farmer crisis and agricultural land transfer at stake and to allow farmers to join together in advocacy efforts.
Supporting Farmers Across All Elements of Success
By definition, a farm incubator is time bound, with programs often offering growers a three to five year term on the incubator property. Generally, the expectation is that producers will gain the marketing, production, and business management skills needed to expand their operations and to “graduate” off the incubator farm. This transition is where problems often re-emerge. If farmers stay on the incubator, space to scale up is often limited (most plots range from 0.25 acre to 1 acre in size). Long tenures at incubators also limit program impact to equip more aspiring farmers with skills they need. Using Graham’s journey as an example, after graduation, Graham still needed to navigate months of uncertainty as he negotiated with nonprofit and municipal partners to obtain a 5-year lease on a parcel of land. Further, Graham’s new soil was incredibly rocky, so New Entry paired him with a mentor farmer to better learn how to farm in rocky soils. In his new lease, Graham was not allowed to build structures of any kind and needed to continue renting space at New Entry’s greenhouse to start his seedlings. Lease restrictions that limit farm infrastructure are not uncommon in New England. While neighbors adjacent to farms often say they value agriculture, they often complain when producers build infrastructure like fencing or high tunnels that might be viewed as less scenic than a hay field. Graham reflected on the importance of support through these new challenges: “New Entry’s willingness to continue providing technical, logistical, and greenhouse support while connecting me to a variety of other resources and social networks has been essential to us developing our business.” Navigating the land access pipeline as a beginning farmer comes with constant hurdles, stressors, and pains. It requires ongoing support from incubator programs.
“Farming is a daunting, capital-intensive endeavor that requires access to land, infrastructure, tools, and markets.”
It is important to emphasize that while incubators like New Entry offer critical and necessary supports to future farmers, challenges posed by limited farmland access remain enormously daunting. There is no silver bullet: successfully connecting aspiring farmers to suitable farmland requires multi-stakeholder, multi-intervention solutions. We cannot tackle the whole problem alone.
New Entry’s incubator model helps farmers get their “foot in the door” as they launch new farm businesses. Photo courtesy of New Entry Sustainable Farming Project
To see more farmland preservation and access efforts succeed in New England, we must start by valuing local food production. We need to advocate to our local, state, and federal legislators for policies that support local farms. In our own towns and communities, we can support agriculturally friendly zoning changes. At the federal level, we can advocate for legislation like the New Producer Economic Security Act, which aims to “authorize a new pilot program to address the interrelated challenges of land, capital, and market access for new producers through innovative, locally-led solutions.”
Each of us needs to remember who feeds us during times of disruption, and support them with our dollars every day. Supporting technical assistance providers and organizations like New Entry is also an essential piece of the bigger puzzle. As farmer training programs across the country face funding freezes that jeopardize millions of dollars in public investment, the food systems community is more dependent than ever on community donors to sustain ourselves. The shifts in federal policy jeopardize over 80 percent of New Entry’s operating budget and likely represent a similar threat to most other farmer support and training programs across the region. During a time when federal funds are pulling back, farmer support organizations are turning to philanthropy and social investment to continue building on-ramps for the next generation of New England farmers. The future of New England’s food system depends on our collective commitment to investing in the land, training, and support networks that empower the next generation of farmers—because growing farmers is as essential as growing food itself.
“While incubators like New Entry offer critical and necessary supports to future farmers, challenges posed by limited farmland access remain enormously daunting. There is no silver bullet. We cannot tackle the whole problem alone.”
Colleen Hanley is the National Program Manager for New Entry Sustainable Farming Project. She manages the Farm Incubation and Education through Land-Based skills Development (FIELD) Network. Colleen joins the FIELD Network from a prior role as Assistant in Extension for the Urban Agriculture Production, Small-Scale, and Beginning Farmer Program at the University of Arizona Cooperative Extension. She holds an MA in nutrition and food studies concentrated on food policy from New York University, and BAs in environmental studies, Concentration food, land, and community, and psychology from the University of Vermont.
Jennifer Hashley is the Trisha Pérez Kennealy and Michael Kennealy Director for New Entry. Jennifer is a leader in local food systems work focusing on beginning farmer development and regional food systems. She also started a vegetable and pasture-based livestock farm; serves as a Trustee for the Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agriculture; and is a Board member of Land For Good, a regional land access and tenure organization. She is a farm business planning instructor for Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources and consults as a strategic advisor to several regional food systems initiatives. She served as an agricultural Peace Corps Volunteer in Honduras. She holds a MS in agricultural policy from Tufts University and a BS in environmental science from Indiana University.
Caitlin Kenney is the National Technical Assistance Coordinator at New Entry. Caitlin has spent the last 25 years building sustainable local food systems, including owning and operating a diversified vegetable farm for eight years in her hometown of Ipswich, Massachusetts. Prior to joining New Entry, Caitlin most recently served as the Executive Director of Nourishing the North Shore, a food access organization focused on increasing access to local produce. Caitlin holds an MS from Antioch University in resource management and conservation, and a self-designed BS degree from UMass Amherst in community-based development through sustainable agriculture.