Sponsored by Leichtag Foundation

Click here to listen to the webinar recording and view the presentation slides.

Resources mentioned during the call include:
– Young farmers are the least diverse – and smallest – group of farmers in the country (Link)

– How knowledge deficit interventions fail to resolve beginning farmer challenges (Link)

– After the incubator: Factors impeding land access along the path from farmworker to proprietor (Link)

– Investing in Food Systems: Gaps in Capital, Analysis and Leadership (Link)

– The New American Farmer: Race, Immigration and Sustainability, Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern (forthcoming book is under contract with MIT Press) (Link)

– Decolonization is not a metaphor (Link)

Webinar Description:
The average age of the American farmer in the United States is 58 years. To ensure the continued success of agriculture, it is necessary to facilitate the transfer of skills and knowledge between current and future generations. However, to create a truly diverse, equitable, and sustainable food system for tomorrow, new and beginning farmer programs today must go beyond knowledge sharing. It is vital that we acknowledge and learn from the limitations of current beginning farmer programming and challenge ourselves to address structural barriers, including land, capital, gender, and race.

In this webinar, speakers will discuss structural limitations of current beginning farmer programming and share examples of how they are addressing deeply entrenched issues of land, capital, gender, and race to ensure that we are creating real opportunities for the next generation of farmers. Participants will learn about the challenges and opportunities to drive change and create equity in the food system.

Moderator:

Sona Desai, director of food systems development, Leichtag Foundation

Speakers:
Maggie Donin, farm business specialist, Intervale Center
David Mancera, farm business advisor, Kitchen Table Advisors
Brett Melone, director of lending, California FarmLink
Mai Nguyen, California organizer, National Young Farmers Coalition; farmer, Sonoma Grain Collaborative

Registration for this webinar is limited to funders only. Funders are considered those organizations using grantmaking or investments as a core strategy to fulfill their mission and who make grants or invest more than $50,000 annually. This includes individual donors, executive and program staff,​ and members of the board of grantmaking organizations (family foundations, individual donors, corporate foundations, government, community foundations, etc.), as well as representatives of non-profit or for-profit investment enterprises. Development or fundraising staff are not permitted to participate in SAFSF events.