Technical Assistance Grant for Beginning Farmers

Posted on March 1, 2019 by Taylor in Farming Resources, Funding, Management // 0 Comments

Smart Farming Team Technical Assistance Grant for Beginning Farmers in New York

About the Technical Assistance Grant for Beginning Farmers: Being prepared to hire and manage skilled employees is crucial to the success of any business. The Labor Ready Farmer Project is offering grants to provide up to 12 hours of Technical Assistance (TA) consulting services to farms who want to make improvements to their farms processes in hiring, training, managing or evaluating employees. Applicants will choose from one of the following four areas for TA assistance and identify a specific project. If selected they will be matched with a “Smart Farming Team” of consultants who will provide one on one technical assistance.

HIRING EMPLOYEES 101 – GETTING OFF TO A GOOD START
Assistance for farmers who have never formally hired or managed employees or who are very new to employee management. Consulting services are available for setting up compliance and paperwork, general policy development, training and management resources and connections to agencies and support networks. This category of Technical Assistance Grant for Beginning Farmers could also apply to Hispanic farm employees who are moving into managerial roles who would like to understand the HR process on the farm or to a farm employee or family member who is being groomed for succession on the farm.

ONBOARDING & TRAINING EMPLOYEES QUICKLY AND EFFECTIVELY
Assistance with improving your farm’s process for hiring and training new staff. Areas for assistance through the Technical Assistance Grant for Beginning Farmers could include, help with streamlining paperwork and record keeping for new hires and assistance in maintaining good records to reduce compliance issues, developing a schedule and set of new hire trainings for your farm to help get workers up to speed and working independently more quickly.

FINE-TUNEING & IMPROVING THE WORKING ENVIRONMENT
Assistance with developing employee manuals, policy development, receiving employee feedback and improving interpersonal skills as a leader and/or help in providing better feedback to employees to reduce problems on your farm.

H2-A READINESS
If you are considering hiring foreign guest workers but are not sure what it would take to get your farm ready we can provide one on one assistance in assessing costs, housing, paperwork and compliance and managing cultural issues.

Technical Assistance Grant for Beginning Farmers Selection Process: Each application will be reviewed for eligibility. Nicole will contact you by phone if your farm looks like a good fit for the project. Priorities for the grant include: (1) Beginning farmers (farmers who have owned and operated their farm for 10 or fewer years); (2) Farms in the process of succession with an identified successor working in the farm business who will be involved in this grant; (3) Farms with a manager who will be involved with the grant who plans to own their own farm in the future; or (4) Farms with a Hispanic farm employee who
will be involved in the grant who is being developed for a managerial role on the farm. During the call, Nicole will help explore what specific issues would be most helpful to the success of your farm, as well as the types of consultant services available for your benefit. Participants will be asked to commit approximately 8 months to the project (up to 12 hours of time in consulting sessions with agricultural workforce specialists) and attend an in-person networking luncheon with other participating farms. In addition, participants will be asked to offer feedback through three short on-line surveys and be open to receiving consultant suggestions.

Instructions: Please complete this application and send to Nicole Waters, Beginning Farm
Project Coordinator for the Cornell Small Farms Program. The form can be submitted by email,
mail or in-person at the address listed below. Please feel free to call or email Nicole with any
questions. We are always happy to hear from you!

Small Farm Program Contact Information:
Nicole Waters – Beginning Farmer Project Coordinator
Plant Science Building, Room 15b
Tower Road, Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853
Phone: 607-255-9911
Email: nw42@cornell.edu
Application Deadline: Accepting applications on a rolling basis