Join the New Entry Sustainable Farming Project and the FIELD Network for our Monthly Networking Session. 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 connect and share project updates!
September's Topic: What is Puerto Rico - AgroInnova doing to increase its Food Security? – Come learn about the diversity of programs AgroInnova is running and the current state of agriculture in Puerto Rico including value added production, demonstration farm and agricultural library, the “Agricultural Mapping Tool” and more!
Some of the key questions we will explore this month include:
1.What do you know about Puerto Rico’s agriculture?
2.What similarities and differences are there with your organization’s approach and AgroInnova’s approach?
3.What areas interest you about AgroInnova and agriculture in Puerto Rico more broadly?
Our Speaker: Ana G. Rodríguez Gómez graduated from Rhode Island College in Providence, Rhode Island, with a BA in Accounting and minors in Economics and Marketing. She began her college education at Interamerican University after graduating from Colegio La Milagrosa in Río Piedras in 1983. Currently serving as the Directora Ejecutiva, AgroInnova, a non-profit corporation created in 2010 to promote the development of jobs for young people from socio-economically disadvantaged communities, framed in a social and community entrepreneurship model. Ana developed the 1st and only poverty eradication program through asset accumulation for adults or “Individual Development Accounts” in Puerto Rico in 2015, which continues to operate. The Criollo Accounts and Individual Development Program of the Autonomous Municipality of Caguas, the Federal Department of Health and Human Services, and the State Legislature enabled 95 families to accumulate assets worth $2.6 million with a municipal and federal investment of $361,000. The program has graduated over 125 families that have been able to purchase a 1st home, pursue their post-secondary education and/or start/expand their businesses. In 2007, she developed the 1st program in the world to use municipal funds for a Universal Savings Accounts Program for Children and implemented the children’s savings program with the Center for a New Economy and the Chana and Samuel Levis Foundation. Since 2013, she has led the only agricultural incubator for value-added products with local raw materials in Puerto Rico, manufacturing 185 products from 30 companies. AgroInnova also includes a demonstration farm and agricultural lab of 54 acres, another sales point incubator, and Agricultural Markets.
We host monthly networking sessions throughout the year (usually on the First or Fourth Fridays of the month at 1pm EST) as a way to connect, continue to learn from one another, build the network, and engage in topic-based discussions of interest (bring your enthusiasm for a topic you’d like to discuss). 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. For any questions about the networking sessions, please reach out to: Jennifer Hashley, New Entry Director.