Aspiring, beginning and experienced women farmers in Iowa and Nebraska will get support and training over the next three years from Women, Food and Agriculture Network as they turn their farming dreams into reality.

 

WFAN is one of 40 organizations that received a 2012 USDA Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Grant (BFRDP), announced Aug. 30, 2012, by USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack at the Farm Progress Show in Boone, IA.

 

The grant of $401,802 will support beginning and aspiring women farmers in Iowa and Nebraska over the next three years by providing them with business planning assistance, networking them with other beginners, and providing them with mentoring relationships with established women farmers in the region.

 

The grant will also take the mentoring program one step farther, by providing mentor farmers with training in risk management and best practices in educating mentees.

 

"WFAN has been working with women farmers for 15 years, and we’ve witnessed an enormous surge in numbers over the past decade,” says Adcock. “We’re thrilled to be able to help new and aspiring women farmers in Iowa and Nebraska reach their farm business goals with the help of this grant.”

 

Click on the boxes at the upper right for more information on opportunities available through this grant project for aspiring, beginning and experienced women farmers in Iowa and Nebraska.

The BFRDP is one of the most important programs of the Food, Farm and Jobs Act (farm bill), and WFAN members all across the US have benefited from prior and current projects. "I urge WFAN members to contact your members of Congress today and tell them you want to see BFRDP preserved and expanded in the next farm bill," Adcock said.

 

BFRDP is targeted especially to collaborative local, state, and regionally based networks and partnerships to support financial and entrepreneurial training, risk management education, marketing strategies, mentoring and apprenticeship programs, “land link” programs, innovative farm transfer and transition practices, and education and outreach activities to assist beginning farmers and ranchers across the country.

This project is supported by the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, USDA, Grant # 2012-49400-19573. To find more resources and programs for beginning farmers and ranchers please visit www.Start2Farm.gov, a component of the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program.