What is the Farm Beginnings Collaborative?

The Farm Beginnings Collaborative is a network of Farm Beginnings™ training programs that are 1) farmer led; 2) community based; and 3) focused on sustainable growers.

From its humble beginnings in a dairy barn in Minnesota more than 20 years ago by a group of farmers calling themselves the “Wabasha County Give a Damns”, it has grown. Its founders wanted to get young people back to the farm and help them make it. The idea grew with organizational support from the Land Stewardship Project, a Minnesota nonprofit. For the whole story, read this piece the Minnesota Post: https://www.minnpost.com/politics-policy/2008/03/farm-beginnings-leads-happy-endings-land.

Over the past two decades, Farm Beginnings™ programs have grown to include 14 regions of the country from North Dakota to North Carolina, Maine to Nebraska. Food Works was accepted as the southernmost Illinois program in 2011. The Land Connection offers Farm Beginnings™ in central Illinois. Angelic Organics Learning Center, whose program is one of the oldest in the network, offers the Stateline Farm Beginnings program in northern Illinois/Wisconsin.

Each program is rooted in its region, informed by local farmers with local wisdom, and strengthened by a national network that shares the most effective tools. The Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association is the newest organization to join the Farm Beginnings Collaborative. Member group Grow NYC is pioneering teaching beginning farmers in the urban setting of New York City while programs in the Dakotas and northern Minnesota share strategies for dealing with low density population areas. Beginning farmers in the program learn to keep good farm records, develop a business plan, evaluate enterprise profitability, protect resources , market effectively, and maintain sustainability.

Organizations involved in Farm Beginnings are committed to sustainable farms and food. Farm Beginnings has nurtured thousands of new farmers and is poised to train thousands more within the next decade to meet the demand for new stewards of food and land.