Join us to connect with staff of land-based farm incubator and apprenticeship training programs!  Share challenges faced by land-based training programs supporting a diversity of beginning farmers and brainstorm ideas, solutions, and shared resources.  Network in breakout groups to mix and mingle with other incubator farm program staff and apprenticeship staff across the country to do some networking, connecting, and sharing of project updates!

This month's session topic is: Assessing Farmer Progress toward Meeting Goals. Evaluating farmer “success” is more complicated than it seems. Is it possible to assess aptitude in an objective way – and can you even attribute progress to your program interventions? How can busy farmers play a role in defining and evaluating their progress? And how to balance these questions with the expectations and definitions of success from funders and other outside interests? This month’s networking session will be led by Aley Kent of the International Rescue Committee’s New Roots Food and Agriculture program that operates gardens, urban farms, and markets in 66 sites across 13 US cities from Sacramento to New York.  She will give a short overview of a new tools they are trying out, and the complications and considerations they’re grappling with. Join your peers to move this evaluation conversation forward!

We will explore key questions such as:
- What are the biggest barriers you run into when trying to evaluate farmer success?
- What do you wish you understood about farmer progress in your program?
- What methods or tools have been most helpful to your program?

Come with questions you’d like to get diverse perspectives from peers across the country.  We are open to a diversity of conversation topics – come ready to share and/or gain new perspective on some of your sticky programmatic challenges!  If you have a topic you’d like to host at a future session, please email Jennifer to discuss ideas:  jennifer.hashley@tufts.edu.

If you have new staff working with your incubator farm program or your apprenticeship training program, please invite them to come and network and meet their peers across the country to build connections.