New alliance helps farmers find solutions

Farmers in our region, like farmers everywhere throughout history, turn a few simple ingredients — seeds, sun, soil, and water — into crops and livestock.

In a complex food economy, a host of other considerations factor into farm business viability. Access to land and markets present particular challenges here in the Northwest Corner, along with those faced by all modern farmers like capital expenses, rising energy costs, price fluctuations, and climate change.

While consumers aren’t often aware of the invisible puzzle behind each local carrot or carton of milk, a network of state and federal agencies, non-profits, and farmers’ associations exists to address the farmers’ challenges from different angles, with varying degrees of success. It’s enough to make a beginning farmer put down her hoe — attempting to understand fixed-rate vs. variable-rate credit opportunities, crop insurance qualifications, conservation incentive eligibility — it’s a lot.

The New CT Farmer Alliance, a statewide network of young and emerging farmers, held an event last month in Bloomfield to connect farmers with potential opportunities that might help them face their challenges.

Farmers in their first few years of operation bopped around from table to table talking to staff from eight different farm service providers.

University of Connecticut extension staff were there to discuss everything from how to take advantage of plant disease diagnostic laboratories to understanding sales opportunities with Connecticut school districts.

While staff from Connecticut’s department of agriculture presented grant opportunities, farmers inevitably found their imaginations translating elaborate names into potential applications on their farms.

Could the Connecticut Farmland Restoration Grant Program lead to a scene in which the local deer population, which plagued last season’s crop,  is left staring hungrily at rows of lush lettuce heads from the opposite side of a new eight foot fence?

Would the “Organic Cost Share Grant Program” lead them to be able to use the organic logo on their products without breaking the bank on certification costs?

Could the “Climate Smart Agriculture and Forestry” grant allow them to afford an expensive no-till seed drill to keep carbon in the ground during planting season?

While the possibilities in an enthusiastic farmer’s imagination tend to be endless, projections required tempering as state grants in Connecticut are highly competitive with need outstripping funding.

Staff from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Farm Service Agency explained credit and financial service options, including microloans, a relatively new credit option better geared to the needs of beginning farmers than traditional USDA loan options that are more suited to large, established farms.

The USDA’s Natural Resource Conservation Service explained technical and financial assistance opportunities for using climate smart practices like soil-health improvement and perennial plantings;  for mitigating risk with measures like windbreaks and erosion control; and for innovating with new tools and practices that increase the long term viability of their farming systems.

Two associations of farmers were on hand — the Connecticut branch of the Northeast Organic Farming Association and the Connecticut Farm Bureau — to discuss the advantages of linking up with other regional farmers for information sharing and lobbying on behalf of the group’s interests.

Legal Food Hub, a nonprofit providing free legal services to farms, and the Carrot Project, which offers business training to farmers, talked about their resources.

Perhaps the biggest hurdle for beginning farmers in northwest Connecticut is access to land, as prices per acre are in line with real estate values rather than what farmers can afford to pay from their crop profits. Two organizations with farmland preservation missions, American Farmland Trust (AFT) and Land for Good, talked to farmers about potential solutions including farm succession matches between beginning and retiring farmers and working with land trusts.

According to AFT’s 2020 report “Farms Under Threat: The State of the States,” 23,000 acres of Connecticut farmland were developed between 2001 and 2016, putting Connecticut in the top three states nationally for the percent of farmland developed or compromised.  If current rates continue, the report concludes that by 2100 a third or more of Connecticut farmland will be lost. Time will tell what impact the farmers and service providers who spent the afternoon at NCTFA’s event together will have on this trend.