Posts Tagged: small farm program
UC Cooperative Extension invites community to California Regional Agritourism Summits
The University of California Small Farm Program and UC Cooperative Extension advisors in four California regions are working with local partners to organize Regional Agritourism Summits for everyone involved in California agritourism. The Summits will be occasions for farmers, ranchers, county planners, the tourism community and others involved to share, learn, and plan together.
Regional Agritourism Summits 2017
Each summit was planned by a local team to best reflect the needs of the region, so each will be unique. Each summit will be a participatory, all-day session with lunch provided.
Participants are invited to bring marketing and organizational information to display and share.
To register and learn more, please visit http://ucanr.edu/summits2017. A registration fee of $25 is requested, payable online or by check.
- Yolo/Sacramento/Solano Agritourism Summit: Monday, February 13, 2017
UC ANR Building, 2801 Second Street, Davis CA 95618
- Sonoma/Marin Agritourism Summit: Thursday, February 16, 2017
Petaluma Community Center, Lucchesi Park, 320 N. McDowell Blvd, Petaluma CA 95954
- Stanislaus/San Joaquin/Merced Agritourism Summit: Thursday, March 23, 2017
Stanislaus County Agricultural Center, 3800 Cornucopia Way, Modesto, CA 95358
- Riverside/San Bernardino/San Diego Agritourism Summit: Wed., March 29, 2017
La Sierra University, 4500 Riverwalk Pkwy, Riverside, CA 92505
UC Small Farm Program Agritourism Resources
The UC Small Farm Program has been working for more than 15 years with UC Cooperative Extension advisors and others to develop resources and connections for California agritourism operators. The UC agritourism website hosts useful factsheets and research. The online agritourism directory and events calendarhelps visitors find farms and ranches to visit. And, the monthly California Agritourism newsletter shares news and resources for the agritourism community.
Funding for this project was provided in part by the USDA Farmers' Market Promotion Program.
More Information: Penny Leff, UCCE Agritourism Coordinator, paleff@ucdavis.edu, 530-752-7779.
Farmers learn, connect, tour and taste in Sacramento
Running a small-scale farm or ranch isn't easy; it requires hard-learned skills, innovative marketing and a supportive community. Farmers and ranchers from all over California will join with farmers' market managers, educators, small farm advocates, and some of the most creative of Sacramento's Farm to Fork chefs at the California Small Farm Conference, held this year at the DoubleTree Hotel in Sacramento from March 5 to March 8, 2016.
For three days, about 400 attendees will join workshops, explore with field courses, network with colleagues and enjoy a few social events. The now-annual conference was started by the UC Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR) Small Farm Program in 1982 as a unique opportunity for small-scale farmers to learn, network and grow their businesses. UC ANR specialists, advisors and staff continue to contribute to the conference as members of the board of directors and as educators presenting science-based information at workshops and field courses.
Sunday, March 6, features all-day field courses and short courses, giving participants a chance for deeper understanding and multiple perspectives as they explore their choice of four different topics. Two of the courses this year will be led by UC ANR educators or staff.
For the on-site short course, "Starting a SUCCESSFUL Specialty Food Business," Shermain Hardesty, a UCCE specialist in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at UC Davis (and leader of the UC Small Farm Program) teams up with Linda Harris, a UCCE specialist in Food Safety and Microbiology at UC Davis, Dan Sullivan, a specialty food business expert and specialty food producers, Jason Poole of Preservation & Co. and Courtney Smith of Bloomingcamp Ranch. UCCE Agritourism Coordinator Penny Leff will lead a field course named, "Direct Marketing: Farmers' Markets, Farm Stands, U-Pick and Wine Tasting," that will visit and learn from some of Sacramento region's expert practitioners of these various direct marketing venues.
Sacramento region food and beverage fans are invited to attend the "Taste of Sacramento" Tasting Reception on Monday, March 7, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. The Tasting Reception is the culinary and social highlight of the California
Online registration for the conference has now closed, but on-site registration is welcome! For more information, see the California Small Farm Conference website, or phone (888) 712-4188. See you there!
Photo of Guido Frosini, True Grass Farms, by Janae Lloyd, a winner of the farm conference 2015 photo contest.
Discover California Farms... ...at California Fairs!
A guide for specialty crop promotion and education at California district and county fairs
Almost everyone in California enjoys our county and district fairs, but most people attending California fairs don't know much about local farmers or the crops that are grown in their own region. Many fairs and members of California agricultural communities are trying new ways to connect local farmers with fair attendees.
Specialty crops – fruits, vegetables, nuts, herbs, flowers, honey, and the products created from them – are a big deal in California. California farmers feed their local communities, provide about half of the fruits and vegetables eaten in the United States, and export their crops and products around the world. Fairs attract thousands of visitors from urban, suburban and even rural communities who have never met a farmer or visited a farm and often do not know what is growing in fields and orchards surrounding their communities. California fairs offer opportunities for the agricultural community to connect with these visitors.
In 2013 and 2014, the California Department of Food and Agriculture's Division of Fairs and Expositions collaborated with the University of California Small Farm Program to organize 20' by 40' interactive, fun and educational exhibits at four different California District Fairs to teach about local farms, crops and farmers' markets and promote fresh fruits, vegetables, nuts, herbs, flowers and honey to fair-goers.
Project staff created a guide to specialty crop education and promotion at county fairs, based on the experience of the many farmers, educators, fair officials and community groups participating in that project. The guide is funded by a California Department of Food and Agriculture Specialty Crop Block Grant, as part of the "Mobile Agriculture Education Exhibit" Project.
The 22 page guide is available here as a downloadable pdf file:
Discover California Farms... ...at California Fairs!
Agritourism Intensive classes help grow supportive networks and new enterprises
“We really enjoy having people on our farm. We have started hosting tours, for fees, including 2 bus tours with more than 40 people. We also remodeled our 100 year old farm house, added a bathroom upstairs to make it ready for a farm stay. Our kids are very involved in these activities. Agritourism is definitely part of our farm plan now.”
Rancher Kathy Landini participated in a similar agritourism planning class in Orland two years ago, and reached different conclusions with her family about agritourism on their ranch:
“Although we are thinking of offering ranch stays, after a family conference we held off. We decided that family privacy and family time would be diminished if we had guests. The kids did not feel that they would be as comfortable coming home.”
Classes offered throughout California
Our goals – new skills and new networks
Because agritourism involves providing a memorable experience to visitors instead of (or in addition to) an agricultural product, agritourism operators must develop new and different relationships with their customers. Attracting and caring for guests usually also requires farmers and ranchers to learn new skills and to form new partnerships with each other and with risk management, hospitality and marketing professionals. Our goals for the classes were to increase understanding of the agritourism industry by participants, and to provide them with skills, resources and connections to plan, start and market their own agritourism businesses or to decide that agritourism was not right for their farm, ranch or family at this time.
Our process – interaction & local connections
The Agritourism Intensive classes used hands-on, interactive activities to guide participants in assessing their own farms or ranches for agritourism potential and starting their own business, risk management, and marketing plans.
Long term follow-up
After offering the classes for three years, we wanted to learn if we were meeting our goals. To learn whether the classes were useful to participants, we contacted the people who took the class two years ago in Fresno and Orland, and the people who completed the class in Sacramento a year ago. We asked if they had started or expanded agritourism activities since their class ended. We also asked whether they had stayed in touch with fellow class participants or presenters.
We heard back from 29 families, or 40 percent of those contacted. Of these, 22 were farmers or ranchers. (The others were tourism professionals, insurance agents, or other related people who work with agritourism operators). We learned that more than half of the responding farmers or ranchers had started or expanded agritourism activities since the class. We heard from a few who had used the class to decide not to pursue agritourism at this time. More than 80 percent of the people responding told us that they had worked with, collaborated with or consulted with at least one person who participated or presented in their class, since the class ended.
Here are some more excerpts from the responses to our inquiry:
Network is continuing
- I have pretty steady contact with some of the people from the class. People call a lot and ask questions about our trail-riding operation.
- The presenter from the Convention & Visitors Bureau has been a great resource to us, bringing some tour group leaders to us and referring other tour groups.
- I visited one of the class presenters and fellow participants to see and learn about his fishing pond operation.
- I purchased 2 mares for my summer camp from someone I met in the class
Many still moving forward…
- We are developing our lavender field and shop in preparation for opening to the public later this spring
- We got our roadside stand up. It's doing OK so far. We were investigating this possibility when we took the class
- Our blueberry U-Pick is still going. We were in the process of opening when I took the class. We have been open for a few years and would like to expand.
Some decided against agritourism…
- Concerns about liability squelched our initial plans to hold weddings on the site.
- Biosecurity has changed our plans for agritourism since we raise chickens.
Conclusion
Although our long term follow-up response was only a small sample, we were pleased to learn that the classes seemed helpful in growing agritourism enterprises and supportive networks. We learned that agritourism businesses can take time, sometimes several years, to grow, especially when farmers are busy farming. We also can say that local networks are important and durable resources for agritourism development.
View a presentation about the Agritourism Intensive classes and follow-up conversations given by UC Small Farm Program Agritourism Coordinator Penny Leff at the Women in Agriculture Educators National Conference, April 2014
California drought and the fate of the state’s beloved berries
To find out, farm advisors around the state are comparing strawberries, blueberries and blackberries grown under four irrigation regimes – one that reflects the normal practice, one half the normal amount of water, one 75 percent of normal, and one that is 25 percent more than normal. The studies are being conducted in Santa Clara, San Luis Obispo, San Diego and Fresno counties.
“We’re doing this because of the water issue in California,” said Richard Molinar, UC Cooperative Extension advisor in Fresno County. “We’re in drought mode. We want to look at ways farmers can cut back the amount of water they are using and still have good tasting berries.”
Molinar recently brought samples of strawberries grown at the UC Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center in Parlier to the Vineyard Farmers Market in Fresno and invited patrons to share their preferences. Strawberry tasters were asked to evaluate the fruits’ appearance, flavor and texture. The advisors will aggregate information from taste testing done on berries from all the research sites.
The research will go beyond consumers’ preferences. Beth Mitcham, UCCE specialist in the Department of Plant Sciences at UC Davis, will evaluate the fruit grown under different irrigation regimes in the laboratory. Mitcham’s research will determine the amount of sugar, the sugar-acid ratio and the amount of antioxidants in the fruit and how these are affected by increasing or decreasing the usual amount of irrigation water.
The study is funded with a specialty crops grant from the California Department of Food and Agriculture awarded to the small farm program under the direction of Shermain Hardesty, UC Cooperative Extension specialist in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at UC Davis.
See video of the strawberry tasting here: