< back to Successes homepage

MIFFS Multicultural Farmers Programs a Success in 2005

By: Morse L. Brown, Project Director of MIFFS Multicultural Farmers Program

It is nice this time of year to reflect on what you’ve done months ago and reminisce. As I write this today, the temperature here in Paw Paw, Michigan is in the 90’s. It makes you wonder where those chilly, wintry days have gone when we were starting our workshops and classes last fall and the cold winter days when the temperature hovered around “0” degrees. In deciding what to share with you in this issue of our MIFFS Memo I am taking a look back at some of the programs that our Multicultural Farmers attended for our 2004-2005 Program Year. We had a busy season of programs last year, starting with our first program, a “Blueberry Season Update and Tour of Trevor Nichols Agricultural Research Station” in November of 2004.

This was a very informative program and featured Mark Longstroth, District Extension Horticultural Extension Educator providing a review of the year in blueberries. Mark was able to provide our growers with the latest information on blueberry varieties, yields and propagation information. He came with the latest information on diseases that had occurred the past season and was able to answer questions that were raised by our farmers in the audience.

Dr. Carlos Garcia-Salazaar, Extension Small Fruit Educator provided an excellent overview of the Trevor Agricultural Research Station’s Integrated Pest Management Program (IPM). He talked to our farmers about the advantages of scouting and how they could get involved in the IPM pest-scouting program. He challenged the farmers to get into the IPM Pest Scouting and indicated that some help by way of scholarships were available for limited resource farmers.

One of the purposes of holding the program at Trevor Nichols was to continue to expose our farmers to the research being carried out at Trevor Nichols. Dr. John Wise, Operations/Safety Coordinator and the Director of the Research Station talked about the station and how it was founded and the type of research that is carried out at the research station. He pointed that the Trevor Nichols Ag Research Station was excellent for conducting fruit research and the climate and environment at the site was very appropriate for many of the diseases that affect fruit.

He pointed out specific examples as we toured the site by tractor drawn wagon. Our next series of workshops were four computer workshops. These workshops taught by Louise Ryan, MSU Extension Technology Transfer Educator from the MSU Extension office in Paw Paw, Michigan. The farmers were taught: “How to Use Windows,” “How To Use The Internet,” “How To Use Word,” and “How To Use Excel.” It was very interesting to hear the farmers in attendance marvel at what they could do with a computer to make their work and their record keeping easier.

Louise said she enjoyed teaching the classes too and we learned more than computer information in the workshops. We learned to allow more time next year so we will be able to provide more instruction to the farmers in each workshop. The farmers were also provided with a workshop on “Blueberry Production and Propagation. This workshop was taught by Doc Anderson a farmer from Covert and Mark Longstroth, District Horticultural Educator. This was the first workshop where we involved a single farmer as a presenter. Doc Anderson did an excellent job and because of his experience he was able to share real life stories of how to successfully propagate blueberries using “whips.” Mark Longstroth provided instruction as well on the production of blueberries.

The Michigan Family Farms Conference provided a number of excellent workshops for the limited resource farmers, multicultural farmers and their families. Workshops such as Estate Planning, Business Planning and Marketing 101: The Basics were excellent for our farmers. The Michigan Family Farms Conference was sponsored by the Farm Research Cooperative, USDA Risk Management Agency, MIFFS and the Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS).

A program that was very successful a year earlier was the “Farm Service Agency Lending Workshop. Dave Russ, Farm
Loan Chief for the Michigan Farm Service Agency taught the class. A class for Hispanic farmers was postponed until August of this year. We are looking forward to the “FSA Lending workshop for the Hispanics.”

Dave has consistently given excellent workshops and has patiently answered many questions raised by farmers about obtaining FSA Loans. As a result of his efforts we have increased the number of minority farmers who have received loans and the time it takes to get applications. Morse Brown, Project Director for the Multicultural Farmers Program says “We still have some work to do; there are farmers who still feel they are not getting a fair share when it comes to FSA loans however we have made some improvements in the process.”

This spring Juan Marinez and several others from our Hispanic community initiated meetings to help us do a better job reaching the Hispanic farmers. As a result of this we were able to hold a workshop at Javier Franco’s farm in Grand Junction on “Preparing Blueberry Plants for spring.” Mark Longstroth and Dr. Carlos Garcia provided the instruction. Armando Arellano and Javier Franco facilitated the food for the day.

It was an excellent program and we had the largest attendance of Hispanic farmers ever. There were 30 participants at the workshop. There is still a lot of work to do to get our limited resource and minority farmers to the point where most are economically viable and their children are showing a strong interest in their farming operations.

Until this happens we have not succeeded with our programs. class. A class for Hispanic farmers was postponed until August of this year. We are looking forward to the “FSA Lending Workshop for Hispanics.” Dave has consistently given excellent workshops and has patiently answered many questions raised by farmers about obtaining FSA loans.

As a result of his efforts we have increased the number of minority farmers who have received loans and the time it takes to process the loan applications. Morse Brown, Project Director for the Multicultural Farmers Program says “We still have some work to do; there are farmers who still feel they are not getting a fair shake when it comes to FSA loans however we have made some improvements in the process.”