Success Stories
Cultivating Community
The New American Sustainable Agriculture Project (NASAP), based at Cultivating Community in Portland, Maine, provides training and technical assistance to immigrants and refugees seeking to develop farm businesses in Maine. Most of its program participants come from African communities where agriculture was a way of life for their families before their homes were devastated by war. Now in Maine, they want to put that old way of life to work creating farm businesses in their new home.
Seynab Ali and Batula Ismail have been participating in NASAP since 2006. Since 2009, they have been successfully attending one of Southern Maine´s best farmers´ markets in Kennebunk, where they have built a loyal following. Every year, customers who attend the first spring markets, before most vegetable vendors arrive, start asking when they will see them again. In 2011, they were also accepted into a competitive market in Mid-Coast Maine in the town of Damariscotta, and together with a farmers´ market in Lewiston, where they live, they now attend three farmers´ markets a week.
In addition, with the support of NASAP, they are delivering 27 CSA shares to various offices in the Portland area a week. They have also independently recruited 5 CSA customers from their farmers´ markets without the program’s support.
Both Seynab and Batula completed a second year of business plan development this year. In NASAP’s business plan track, advanced participants like Seynab and Batula are paired with expert advisors from the agricultural community to give them additional resources to succeed. The business planner helped them identify their financial goals for the year, then walked back through each individual market to identify what necessary weekly sales would need to be to reach their goal. They then modified the goal to keep their plans realistic and discussed business strategies to meet their weekly sales targets.
Seynab and Batula each made several thousand dollars in 2009, enough to meet the USDA’s definition of a farmer but not enough to support a family. Over the past two years, however, with NASAP’s support they have seen their income rise by over ten times. They are always thinking about the next steps in developing their business and acquiring the skills they need to succeed. In 2012, their goals are to better integrate cover crop into their farm and to set up their irrigation system as early in the spring as possible.
Above all, for the customers who have gotten to know them at markets, it is their enthusiasm and their commitment to succeed as farmers in Maine that shines through. In Batula’s words, “This country is a new country. It is difficult to farm. I want to improve my life through farming… to make my farm bigger and to have my own farm and house. I believe no one can live without farms.”
Heritage Turkeys at Spring Chicken Farm
![<p>Heritage Turkeys at Spring Chicken Farm</p>
Heritage Turkeys](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20121006194940im_/http://www.start2farm.gov/sites/default/files/imagecache/spotlight_page/heritage%20turkeys.jpg)
Down a narrow paved road, on the way to the transfer station in Topsham, Vermont, Betsy Mattox is in her fourth year of managing Spring Chicken Farm. “Being on the way to the dump has its advantages,” laughed Mattox as we toured her property. Despite her initial reservations about the property, the Saturday morning traffic has been a boon to her spring seedling sales, which are a small but significant part of her evolving farm business. For Mattox, every year managing her farm has been different, as she has sought to find a sustainable model that suits her personality and makes room for other things in her life. Last year’s newest difference is her baby girl, Claire, born in December. Much of Mattox’s planning has been influenced by her desire to have children and manage her farm independently. Her husband is a carpenter and sawyer, who helps when needed but isn’t interested in working full-time on the farm. As Mattox has honed in on her goals and the quality of life she aspires to, her niche farm has taken shape and is taking off. She has also been helped through her participation in Holistic Management International’s (HMI) Empowering Beginning Women Farmers in the Northeast through Whole Farm Planning program.
Mattox began working on farms as a teenager, gaining new perspective with every experience. The farmers she has worked for have been some of her greatest mentors. However, marketing and business know-how was something she missed being employed on educational and start-up farms. She regrets never working on a large, profitable farm where she could have experienced effective business management first hand.
When she came to Vermont four years ago, she knew she was ready to manage her own operation and decided to learn business and marketing skills on the fly. From the beginning, Mattox wanted to see how small her operation could be. While she admires large, sustainable farms and their capacity to serve larger markets, she also knew that was not her style. In her first two years, she operated a small Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) business, serving her local community. During that time she started experimenting with growing broiler chickens. With this new enterprise, she found, not only an eager market for her high quality poultry, but also a venture that suited her personality.
In her third year, Mattox gave up all market gardening except a small Thanksgiving share CSA to compliment the heritage breed turkeys she was raising. While she never planned to be a poultry farmer, she has found that this enterprise is tailored to her management goals and the quality of life she desires. As with her seedling enterprise, Mattox appreciates the focused sales window for her products. The animals are off the farm by winter which frees up time for other things. All of her chickens are pre-sold and secured with a deposit from her customers. Most customers come to the farm to pick up their orders on slaughter day, relieving Mattox from the necessity of freezing and storing her product. How does she market her products? “My town has a really good gossip train,” Mattox remarked. And nearly everyone in town drives by on Saturday mornings. An extensive mailing list, good signs and flyers have all assisted in her focused community marketing.
To gain new skills in farm business management, Mattox was accepted in 2010 to a course in Holistic Management Whole Farm Planning offered through UVM Extension as part of an USDA/NIFA grant that HMI received. Whole Farm Planning for Beginning Women Farmers is a 10-session course that facilitates creating a values-based mission for the farm and teaches participants about financial management, business planning, marketing and monitoring land health. For Mattox the most important aspect of this class was networking with other beginning women farmers. Feeling isolated on her farm was balanced by the opportunity to share experiences and learn from other course participants.
Mattox has faced challenges in starting her business but sees many opportunities as well. Mattox jumped right into managing her own farm when she came to Vermont. In retrospect, she wished she had taken more time to prepare her land, therefore reducing the time she has spent fighting perennial weeds. She also thinks she would have benefited from a mentoring program for new farmers. She feels there is no substitute for mentoring with someone who is a master in their field. Additionally, Mattox admits, she has a hard time letting go of established enterprises. In the future she plans to make a clean break from products that are not profitable or don’t meet her personal goals, and to start new enterprises when she is really prepared.
As for opportunities, Mattox says, “Really healthy foods often have a cultural and political niche market, but they are for everybody.” She envisions working with midwives and health care providers to provide nutrient dense foods to pregnant women and people fighting chronic illnesses. “I want to make nutritional food available to those who are newly open to improving their diet.” Mattox is working on expanding her operation and is using funds from her Individual Development Account (IDA), a matched savings plan offered through local Community Action Agencies, to purchase a bulk feed bin. by Jessie Schmidt
Although I am not a farmer now, I do hope to be someday
![<p>Chad Nordlum, Alaska Growers School</p>
Chad Nordlum, Alaska Growers School](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20121006194940im_/http://www.start2farm.gov/sites/default/files/imagecache/spotlight_page/Chad%20Nordlum.jpg)
Chad Nordlum completed the Beginning Alaskan Growers School in 2011, the Advanced Alaskan Growers School in 2012 by distance using teleconference and printed materials. Chad plans to attend the 5-day Alaskan Growers School Experiential Learning Course at Calypso Farm and Ecology Center near Fairbanks, Alaska in July of 2012.
"I am not a farmer. I grew up in Kotzebue, Alaska. Farmers do not come from Kotzebue. Snow mobile racers, dog mushers and fishermen come from Kotzebue, but not farmers. Hunting and gathering are the traditional ways of the Inupiaq people but the Inupiaq have always been adaptable. Kotzebue does have a small gardening community, as do other villages in our region. In fact my great-grandfather, who came from Michigan, was well known for his garden on Front Street in the early nineteen hundreds. He grew cold weather crops like turnips. My grandfather also had a garden every summer as he got older, using a retired boat as a raised bed.
Still, I did not begin gardening until I returned to Kotzebue nearly four years ago. I started mostly because I enjoyed the idea of growing food above the Arctic Circle in a challenging environment. But I also worried about our food security, all fresh produce comes from outside of Alaska by the most inefficient and costly means (in terms of both environment and money). I began with a small garden, added two raised beds and now I am experimenting with greenhouses. What I have realized is that it is possible to grow a variety of things in our challenging environment, it requires a lot of work, but it can be done.
Now that I realize that growing is possible, it only makes sense to produce as much produce as we can locally. That means starting a farm. The ideal would be that the cost of food could go down and food quality rise at least seasonally. There are many challenges to starting a farming operation including acquiring suitable land, finding tools and equipment where none exists and lack of infrastructure to support a farming operation despite these challenges I believe that there is a huge opportunity in farming in this region. Besides being profitable farming would help the economy by keeping more money local, not to mention having better produce available will improve the health and wellness of the people of the region.
What I hope to get from going to Calypso Farm is to gain knowledge of a working farm. Being in Fairbanks, I believe that the climate is similar to some of our upriver villages, the operation might translate closely to what could be done in villages like Kiana, Ambler or Kobuk. I have never been on a working farm so there is a huge knowledge gap that needs to be filled. In the near future I hope to identify land near an upriver village suitable and available for farming. Most likely it will require negotiation with the regional corporation or other entity. I do have land available and there are areas that are suitable for growing, but it is hard to get to with no roads and being about 30 miles from any village. Logistically I don’t know if I can develop that area and keep my job. While I am trying to solve this puzzle I plan to continue and expand my subsistence gardening here in Kotzebue. I also will continue to be in contact with some of the local gardeners and sharing ideas and learning.
My goals are to learn about a working, sustainable farm and to use that learning to continue to plan a sustainable for-profit farm in the Northwest Arctic. I also plan to continue to advocate for growing food in region through community greenhouses and by any other means necessary. Although I am not a farmer now, I do hope to be someday."
This project was supported by the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, USDA, Grant # 2010-49400-21719. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author (s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
By Chad Nordlum of Kotzebue, Alaska