New Entry's farmer library has hundreds of resources on sustainable farming, marketing, and operating a successful small business. Our physical library at our office in Beverly, MA contains books, CD's, DVD's periodicals, pamphlets, and videos in English, Spanish, Hmong, and Khmer. You can also search the directory below for downloadable digital resources, helpful web sites, and online farming videos.
Please visit or email us at nesfp@tufts.edu if you can't find what you're looking for here. Sometimes we are out in the field, so it's best to let us know if you're planning on stopping by.
PDF Assessment form used by organizations to determine a farmer's past history and experience with farming/gardening. Can be easily adapted to other programs. All Regions. English Level: Advanced. Farming Level: n/a. Literacy Level: Advanced. Key Words: assessment, evaluation, administrative.
Background Information on New Americans’ is a compilation of resources about refugees and special immigrants actively participating in refugee agriculture programs at the International Rescue Committee in Charlottesville, VA. The information originates from a variety of sources including the IRC itself and the Department of Health and Human Services. It provides abbreviated information about the cultural practices and context from which resettled people hail, with an emphasis on diet, food traditions and agricultural
background.
The BCS Safety Checklist and Parts Diagram is a resource designed to be incorporated into a field workshop to train multi-farming and language/literacy farmers how to safely operate and maintain a BCS machine and roto-tiller attachment. This resource should be used by staff as a guide to teach farmers during a workshop, but can also stand alone as a handout or sign after an initial workshop. Staff will use hands-on demonstration to show farmers how to operate machines and attachments.
Shell beans are an important crop to farmers, but (and because of how much they are grown) they face significant pest pressure on the farm. We worked with our local extension agent to put together accurate, useful, and accessible organic management options for the two most important pests on our farm: Mexican bean beetle and leaf hopper.
This Bed Planning tool is used to assist farmers in knowing which crops to plant in each bed and when to plant them. Each bed marker is filled out either by staff ahead of time, or by farmers in a class session using their crop calendars and crop rotation plot maps. The bed markers are then placed in each bed at the farm. This tool was developed to increase farmer independence through simple tools, as farmers were not consulting their notebooks weekly and/or had difficulty reading their crop calendars throughout the season. You can add cover crop rotations, succession planting, and multiseason planting. Using these tools allows farmers to quickly look at the upcoming dates, prepare their beds, and plant their seeds in the right bed and at the right time. They are laminated and tape is used for writing in permanent marker (on top of tape), so that they can be recycled and used year after year.
These best practices are the result of a collaborative process between ten New American farmer training programs. Over a three year period, these programs implemented new teaching resources and methods. These practices represent effective and relevant teaching practices for farmer training with farmers with educationally and linguistically diverse backgrounds
The Bookkeeping for Farmers webinar is part of the larning material produced with the Overcoming Risk During Climate Variability: The Importance of Recordkeeping in Small Scale Farming grant.
The slide deck include visuals, charts, and graphs to enhance understanding of the topic.