A Community Guide to Organizing Small FarmsStories from El Valle de Atrisco

By Patrick W. Staib and the American Friends Service Committee In collaboration with: e-merging communities, La Plazita institute, and Valle Encantado

Produced by American Friends Service Committee AFSC New Mexico Office 2047 Tapia SW, Albuquerque, NM 87105 505 842-7343 newmexico@afsc.org www.afsc.org/albuquerque

Photography and design by AFSC staff

Copyright © 2013 by the American Friends Service Committee

This work is licensed for reuse under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Details at www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/

The project and research from which this manual is derived was funded by: U.S. Department of Agriculture – National Institute of Food and Agriculture Binnacle Family Foundation McCune Charitable Foundation Quail Roost Foundation

American Friends Service Committee

Founded in 1917, the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) is a Quaker organization in-cluding people of various faiths who are committed to social justice, peace and humanitarian service. Co-recipient of the 1947 Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of Quakers worldwide, AFSC today carries out programs of service, development, justice and peace throughout the United States, Central and South America, the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.

AFSC’s New Mexico Program

Farming requires water, and in New Mexico, there is a long-standing conflict over land and water rights. The displacement of traditional agricultural communities, along with appropriation of land and water resources by government and corporations, creates major obstacles for land-based com-munities to engage in sustainable agriculture that generates enough income to support their families and communities. These conditions conspire to create a food-insecure state and puts New Mexico children and future generations at risk.

Since 1976, the American Friends Service Committee’s New Mexico program has identified with the struggles of local people to empower themselves, with particular attention to water and land use, and the need to support traditional ways of life. Like many marginalized communities within the U.S., the Hispanic and Native American population of New Mexico seeks self-determination, economic growth and cultural dignity. The Service Committee works with local people and organizations to regain control over the current and future use of traditional water systems, utilize and manage local resources, and preserve their traditional ways of life.

The New Mexico program provides hands-on, farmer-to-farmer training to land-based people so they can have economic security from their land and water. We facilitate the creation of farmer networks for marketing and sales, and advocate for policies that support small sustainable farms and help connect low-income people to resources to support their work. Our long-term goal is to help revitalize sustainable farming in New Mexico, thereby protecting culture, land, water and jobs, and improving the health of the communities—especially children.

2047 Tapia SW Albuquerque, NM 87105 505 842-7343 newmexico@afsc.org www.afsc.org/albuquerque

ContentsPart One: Farmer-to-Farmer Training Program

Formation and implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6First quarter of the training program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7Second quarter of the training program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10Third quarter of the training program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13Fourth quarter of the training program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Part Two: Network FormationIntroduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24Naming the network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24Insurance Coverage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25Cold storage and kitchen rental space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26Steering committee formation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26Regulatory permits and certifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27Procurement process for APS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Part Three: Market AggregationMarket aggregation in a farmer network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30Sales and account management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30Harvest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32Post-harvest handling procedures for salad greens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33Quality control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33Packaging and labeling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34Delivery and invoicing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

AppendixSample farm plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35Sample job description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36Sample MOU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37Sample label for boxes of produce . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39Well permit flow chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40Harvest and processing log . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41Growers' market procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42Sample farmers' market bank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

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AcknowledgmentsPatrick Staib created this manual with support from Sayrah Namaste, Don Bustos, and Claudia Isaac. Eisha Mason, Tony Heriza, Carl Roose, Willie Colon, Sarah Beth Horan, and Emily Cohane-Mann were instrumental in editing and designing the manual.

Warm thanks also go to the following individ-uals: Pablo Lopez, Albino Garcia, Henry Rael, Joseph Alfaro, Fidel González, Jeff Warren, Woody Bitsie, Angelina Lopez-Brody, Jedrek Lamb, Lorenzo Candelaria, Joseluis Ortiz, An-drew Valverde, David Chavez, Brandy Mon-taño, Jorge Garcia, James Maestas, Francisco Ochoa, Claudia Isaac,Tim Lorek and Adamm Martinez.

We must also thank the landowners who welcomed our activities on their land: Barbara Martinez, Centro Sábila and Dr. Bill Wagner, Bernalillo County Open Space, Zoe Economou and Claude Ste-phenson, Rufus Cohen and Suzanne Sbarge, Ron Motta, Sofia Martinez and Richard Moore, Jorge Garcia, Juan Abeyta, Ruby Bishop, Henry Rael and Michelle Otero, and the Center for Action and Contemplation.

The following organizations were important to this work: e-merging communities, La Plazita Insti-tute, Valle Encantado, Rio Grande Community Farms/Americorps program, NM Healthy Communi-ties Initiative and ARCA Organics.

The following institutions have been vital to this effort: Albuquerque Public Schools, Foodservice Division; University of New Mexico Research Service–Learning Program; Bernalillo County Cooper-ative Extension Service; and the South Valley Economic Development Center.

Finally, this project and the manual would not have been possible without the support of the US De-partment of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture, the Binnacle Family Foundation, the McCune Charitable Foundation, and Quail Roost Foundation.

— Don Bustos, Director, New Mexico Program

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IntroductionAFSC’s New Mexico program began in 1976 and since then has identified with the struggles of local people to empower themselves, with particular attention to water and land use and the need to support traditional ways of life.

The decision to work in the South Valley re-gion of Albuquerque came in response to the rising threats to water rights and arable land, historical disinvestment in the South Valley community, and a strong history and tradition of South Valley farming. Also, Albuquerque is the largest urban center in New Mexico and has the greatest potential within the state to support small-scale, organic farm production for sale to local markets.

The focus on farmer training was a response to an Albuquerque Public Schools’ (APS) program that invested in local farm produc-tion for its food service program. Don Bustos, director of AFSC’s New Mexico program and lifelong farmer, recognized that the APS’ pro-gram to purchase from local farmers did not match the production capacity of New Mex-ico farmers at that time. In essence, no single small-scale operation1 in New Mexico could meet the APS requirements for obtaining ven-dor status and supplying a consistent, high-volume product. At the time of the grant proposal, three entities2 were able to access parts of this program, but the budget for the APS local food program was never completely spent. This situation provided an ideal opportunity to train farmers in year-round production to satisfy the demand of the local food program at APS.

A traditionally agrarian area, the South Valley lies along the banks of the Rio Grande. The past three generations of South Valley residents have experienced shifts in economic and productive activity. As a result, many people abandoned produce or livestock production because they could not compete with national and international markets or afford the increasing production costs. The remaining farmers tended to focus on alfalfa for hay and livestock feed. The small-scale, diverse family farm was rapidly disappearing and residential and commercial development was taking its place.

1 Farm scale is determined by income level. A farm that earns less that $250,000 in gross revenue is considered “small.” However, smaller scale operations tend to be the status quo New Mexico.

2 Rio Grande Community Farms, a 501(c)3 organization, The NM Apple Council, and Farm to Table, another 501(c)3 de-velopment organization, were the only groups that obtained vendor status and vended to APS through the Lot II Local Food Program.

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The South Valley’s proximity to Albuquerque is a mixed blessing. The potential for high-value pro-duce sales to the Albuquerque community is great, but so is the threat from urbanization and gen-trification that is common in urban centers with scarce resources. Given that reality and the fact that the New Mexico Office of the State Engineer has been pushing to register all existing wells and adju-dicate water rights throughout the state, it is critical that those with existing or dormant water rights enact those rights and use them to feed the people of the South Valley and its surrounding area.

About this guideThis resource guide describes how the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) established a farmer-to-farmer training program and facilitated the establishment of a farmer-owned produce brokerage, Agri-Cultura Network (ACN) in the South Valley of New Mexico. It includes an overview and history of farming efforts in the Rio Grande Valley, as well as a description of the collaboration and partnership that took place during a three year, USDA funded pilot program. This manual is intended to document how the AFSC and its community partners have implemented this project to date, in order to share the lessons learned with others who may want to undertake this kind of broad-based, community driven, and collaborative community farming project.

The vision, perseverance, and dedication of the hard-working individuals and community-based organizations of the South Valley community deserve the utmost gratitude for allowing AFSC’s New Mexico program to collaborate with them to develop a better future for farming, feeding our neigh-bors, and creating a more just and sustainable future.

The idea of different farm and garden projects collaborating was not new to the South Valley. In fact, small farmers have had to work together for decades to resist commercial and residential develop-ment. What this project introduced was a way to channel federal subsidies to underserved and at-risk populations in order to support local, low-impact agricultural production. AFSC met with the direc-tors of South Valley-based community organizations to design a farmer-to-farmer training program that would organize production and sell produce to Albuquerque Public Schools (APS).

This guide describes how this collaboration achieved three main goals: (1) design and conduct a farmer-to-farmer training program, (2) establish a farm/farmer network, and (3) aggregate harvest for sale to APS. AFSC-New Mexico acted as the lead organization in drafting the narrative and bud-get for the project as well as administering the grant. AFSC-New Mexico partnered with La Plazita Institute, e-merging communities, and the Mountain View Neighborhood Association to apply for the project funds. The grant proposal included letters of support from Albuquerque Public Schools Foodservice Division, La Montañita Food Co-operative, and Bernalillo County Cooperative Exten-sion that confirmed potential outlets for any food produced through the grant-funded project.

The “Community-Based Food Security for Albuquerque Public Schools” grant proposal was submit-ted to the USDA Cooperative Research Education and Extension Service (now operating as the Na-tional Institute for Food and Agriculture or NIFA). It was awarded to AFSC in 2009 and allowed us to purchase the material infrastructure, conduct a farmer-training program (there were three farmer trainees per year, each of whom received a stipend to support his or her participation), and establish a farmer network to vend to APS and larger institutional buyers. The three-year grant funded the above expenses as well as the salary for a project coordinator who conducted training programs, es-

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tablished accounts and coordinated wholesale processes, and drafted training manuals and commu-nity resource guides. Other AFSC volunteers and staff provided substantial periodic support to the project over its three years of funding. When the project was implemented from 2009 through 2012, the AFSC/ Community Partnership included three South Valley Community Organizations: e-merg-ing communities, La Plazita Institute, and Valle Encantado.

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Part One: Farmer-to-Farmer Training Program

Formation and implementationOne of the main foci of the “Community-Based Food Security for Albuquerque Public Schools” grant was to establish and implement a farmer-to-farmer training program (FTFTP) for people who wanted to dedicate themselves to supplying the local market’s demand for produce. Our model re-quired that trainees learn how to establish a small-scale farming operation and then set the operation in motion so they could support themselves financially. This section explains the design of the AFSC farmer training program, its intended outcomes, and the various opportunities and challenges we encountered as the program took form.

The instructional approach and training themes were based on the principles of popular education though experiential learning. The training program provided a structure and stipend for three train-ees who worked directly with the AFSC’s New Mexico staff: Don Bustos, AFSC Program Director, Sayrah Namaste, AFSC Program Coordinator, and Patrick Staib-Flores, NIFA Project Coordinator. Our approach focused on establishing and operating collaborative farm projects. Through shared experience, trainers and trainees addressed a wide range of issues and concerns, including the tasks necessary for successful farming throughout the year. The other benefit of shared experience was that those familiar with certain tasks (i.e., seeding lettuce or setting irrigation) could model how it was done, after which the trainee could repeat the activity and the trainer could assist or confirm that the activity had been learned. In most cases, trial-and-error was the greatest instructor. Lessons usually sunk in once the trainee had no choice but to learn from his or her own mistakes.

Once the funding came through, the AFSC training team met to arrange the logistics and parameters of the training program. The grant provided stipends to compensate trainees for 18 hours per week, but the training program was designed with a 40- to 60-hour per week farm operation in mind. How this discrepancy was resolved varied depending on the farm sites that were part of the Agri-Cultura Network and operated within the larger programs of the NIFA project partners—Valle Encantado (VE), La Plazita Institute (LPI), and e-merging communities (emc). Some farm trainees had to find off-farm work, while others spent non-training time working on the farm sites. Each farm supple-mented its costs through sales of their produce. In the first year, one organization allocated this rev-enue directly to farm trainees, in another the revenue went to the organization to support the farm training program, and in the third revenues were split between the farm trainee and the organization. In years two and three, these revenue distributions shifted. One way to facilitate farmers’ operational viability was to allow them to retain revenues from produce sales as a way to supplement training stipends.

The AFSC training program was designed to prepare farmers for year-round production of a season-al selection of ten annual crops and two perennial crops, coupled with a sound and diverse marketing plan. After several visioning and planning events with the project partners (emc, LPI, VE), the first

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year trainees, and the AFSC staff, we established a model that revolved around the local growing season in the middle Río Grande region and the South Valley in particular. The following section outlines the structure of the AFSC farmer-to-farmer training program and how the program was established. The curriculum was based on the year-round farming cycle, and was designed to provide an opportunity for farmer/trainees to understand how farm production, management, and market-ing plays out over the entire cycle.

First quarter of the training programThis project began on land provided by the three partner organizations. La Plazita manages La Pla-zita Garden on the historic, County owned Sanchez Farm. E-merging communities provided access to their Jardines de Moktezuma, and the Valle Encantado executive director dedicated his back yard to farming. This initial land base totaled about 1.5 acres, a good place to start, but not enough land to support the goal of providing green salad to APS over the full year. So each organization sought memoranda of understanding with South Valley landowners. By the end of year one, the project was farming on 1.5 acres, scattered throughout the South Valley. In year two, this grew to 4 acres. In year three some land was withdrawn from the project, and other land brought on line, leaving 6 acres total. Most landowners allowed the organizations to operate on their land for free. These landowners cooperated because they liked our mission and saw our work as a contribution to their community’s wellbeing and revitalization. Several also valued the project for returning their land to production and affirming their family’s farming traditions. In this way, our project benefits extended to others in the community via these land agreements.

Once the initial farmland was secured, planning and prepping was the next natural step. Fall is the planning and prepping time on most farms. Year-round production spreads this task over a longer period of time, keeping labor active and reducing costs, which allows for sound farm planning. As one season is coming to a close, farmers need to begin prepping or building the infrastructure to extend the season. For example, you can use wire hoops and row cover cloth to construct a semi-per-manent structure that will extend the growing season through the winter.

The AFSC program secured funds and materials for cold frame construction. This offered a venue to continue instruction and an opportunity for trainees to learn how to build and utilize cold frames to extend farm production.

Lessons Learned

Several farmers/trainees noted that this upfront subsidy was a critical factor in their early success. As AFSC reduced its financial support in years two and three, farmers and trainees expressed some concern that they would not be able to sustain the up-front costs. Farmers discovered the need to manage cash flow in order to save for the next year’s inputs and equipment.

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In the fall of 2009, AFSC bought the materials to construct six (30’x100’) cold frames from Jaderloon, a greenhouse and farming/gardening equipment company. We stored the six-ton order of steel bars and rafters at local South Valley residences, and began construction of the first two cold frames at the Historic Sanchez Farm on La Plazita Garden’s farm site. La Plazita Gardens already produced greens, kale, and other produce on the approximately 30’x100’ area of the first cold frame. Therefore, we constructed to the north of the existing garden.

Our goal was to build all six cold frames (two per organization) over three years in order to provide training opportunities for all three trainee cohorts, while also ensuring a consistent supply of salad mix and leafy greens to the Albuquerque Public Schools (APS) local food allocation. We built the first two by the end of 2009 at the Sanchez Farm (LPI’s site). By March 2012 we finished the first cold frame at Jardines de Moktezuma (Jardines), e-mc’s farm site. The following cold frame went up in May with the assistance of Patrick Staib’s UNM Anthropology class at a nearby site of Jardines’. By the fall, we constructed the last two cold frames at the Candelaria Farm with Valle Encantado, in time to supply a contract to APS.

Lessons Learned

Some of the cold frame construction was delayed as the organizational partners sought to secure land for production. Because the project relied on the scattered sites of many different owners, the acquisition of land for training and farming became an ongoing challenge that was not fully resolved until year three of the project. Also, since the South Valley is a semi-urban place, not all acquired land was ready for farming, which meant that we had to build extra time in the plan for some extensive site preparations.

There are five major steps in building a cold frame: (1) squaring, (2) erecting, (3) secur-ing, (4) framing, and (5) skinning. AFSC’s farmer training manual Farming for a Sus-tainable Community (FSC) has a thorough explanation of these procedures, but follow-ing is some of what we learned along the way.

First we had to square the area on which the cold frame would stand. This was a relatively straightforward application of the Pythago-rean theorem (a2 + b2 = c2) to establish right angles at corners. This step ensured that the structure was as plumb and square as possi-ble. The 30’x100’ galvanized steel cold frame could withstand the blustery and sustained winds of the New Mexico spring, but only if constructed properly. In our case, we squared the area using nylon string and batter boards nailed to steel stakes.

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Next we pounded in the anchor posts. Anchor posts are a wider diameter than the bows. They were driven into the ground and left at a uniform height sticking out of the ground. The anchor posts from Jaderloon came pre-drilled, so it was important to ensure that all the drill holes were the same height. After our first day, we found that ten-pound sledgehammers with fiberglass handles were ideal for a long day of post pounding. The cold frame kit came equipped with a five pound steel slug that was inserted at the top of the anchor post and then pounded with the sledgehammer.

We made sure that the anchors were the correct distance apart. Once the anchor posts were driven, square, and with the pre-drilled holes facing out, it was time to assemble the bows (or rafters). The bows were large and had to be assembled flat on the ground. Two to three people could put them together while others worked on erecting them and inserting the ends into the anchor posts. It was a good idea to leave a bolt in the bottom drill hole in the anchor post. This bolt blocked the bow from sinking too deep into the anchor post. It also allowed us to pass a carriage bolt through the anchor post and the inserted bow with minimal effort. We routed the hole with a still drill bit or used a pipe wrench to line up pre-drilled holes. Then we secured the bolt with the appropriate nut. We repeated this process for all the necessary bows.

We discovered that it was also a good practice to ensure that the end bows were plumb and square. We tied them down to secure them in plumb position. Next it was time for ladder work. The Jaderloon cold frame came equipped with three to five purlins that ran the length of the structure and were installed in the center or highest part of the bow and outwards at the inter-section of cross-braces and bows. The purlins run perpendicular to the bows. For the sake of efficiency, we assigned a ladder to each line of purlins. Ideally, a 15-foot ladder worked under the center purlin and two 12-foot ladders on the ends. This allowed us to send a crew to square, plumb, and secure the bows to the purlins in segments of four bows at a time. Once we arrived at the end, we did not have to return to adjust and correct bows and purlins, which happened with several cold frames we built.

Lessons Learned

Although there are clear procedures for building a cold frame, trial and error taught us how to adapt the cold frame to the site.

The heavy work to erect the structure and secure the purlins took almost as long as what we termed “the finishing work,” which entailed securing baseboards along both long sides of the cold frame, framing end walls, and attaching u-channel rails to the entire perimeter of the structure. We used 2’x6’ boards for the baseboards and 2’x4’ for the frame. We wood lathed and tacked nails to secure the plastic cover to the end walls. But first, all of the u-channel rails had to be attached to the baseboards and over the top of the bows on the end walls. (See the training manual for more details.)

Once the frame was complete and the u-channel rails were attached around the entire perimeter of the structure, we organized a group of eight to ten people to cover, or skin, the structure with plas-tic. This required long ropes and good coordination. It was best to do this in the morning before the winds picked up. We used three lengths of at least 50 feet and tied them to the corners and the center

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of one end of the plastic. Then we tossed or passed the line over the frame. Simultaneously we pulled all three lines and also had a person use a soft-ended pole to push the plastic along. We aligned the plastic with all four corners of the structure and secured it with tension-wire or wiggle-wire starting at one corner and working to the opposite corner. We then trimmed excess plastic and tacked wood lathe to the front and back end walls. Finally, we installed the door.

Once this was done, we set up the irrigation system by running two-inch poly tubing along the front end wall of the structure and sending drip lines perpendicular along the growing beds. If there were enough hands, we dug out three foot growing beds before the frame was skinned. Once the irrigation was operational, it was time to decide what to plant inside the cold frame.

Lessons Learned

It is important to build other bonding experiences through collective work once the farm infrastructure is completed so that later cohorts of trainees get the benefit of the same experience. By building cold frames in as a group, the farm trainees—who did not know each other beforehand--formed a strong bond. This process of working as a team on each other’s farms helped build the relationships and trust that made the Agri-Cultura Network work.

Second quarter of the training programJanuary 2010 marked the second quarter of the FTFTP. That’s when we held a seed selection work-shop to coordinate planting and harvesting schedules for our first collaborative growing season and subsequent bid to supply APS with produce once the school year started in August 2010. To our knowledge, never before had farmers in the South Valley met to coordinate their crop planning and seed order. AFSC was stressing collaboration over competition, funding seeds for all and encourag-ing an aggregation plan. We conducted this workshop and another business planning workshop with New Mexico State University (NMSU) Bernalillo County Cooperative Extension. Trainees had to ap-ply recently introduced themes such as purchasing adequate seed to meet market demands, obtaining ideal varieties of seeds, and selecting a diverse number of crops (ten annuals in the AFSC model).

The seed selection workshop became an important annual event in operational and budget plan-ning and a valuable activity for training in organic farm production. In this workshop, the trainees mapped and sketched the linear and bed feet that they intended to put into production. They then applied what they learned to select the appropriate quantities and varieties of seed. They designed the layout of their growing area and figured out their estimated yields. This seed workshop inspired a formal crop plan tied into farm budget planning. Once the seed order was clear in January, farmers could estimate their annual expenses for getting into production that year (i.e., irrigation, amend-ment, row cover and wires, nutrients, and labor).

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Lessons Learned

Coordinating planning across individual farmers and organizations is not easy. While all farmers understood the benefits of sequencing their planting to accommodate the market for their crops, the implementation of this model proved difficult, though not impossible. It is certainly worth taking the time to emphasize farm planning in the training and to reinforce this training in ongoing mentorship and collective decision-making.

The winter months were also ideal for planting and tending perennial crops. The AFSC-FT-FTP focused on two perennial crop varieties for marketing through the Agri-Cultura Net-work: blackberries and asparagus. Both came from Nourse Farms and arrived as rootstock.

There were two major plantings in the first year. First we planted 3,000 asparagus plants at a half-acre site that belonged to the Martinez family and operated with a Memorandum of Understanding with La Plazita Gardens, which managed the site. It took a full week with the entire team on hand to clear the site of debris, car scraps, weeds, and lumber. We spread compost and used a tractor to plow, till, and dig furrows to plant the asparagus rootstock. The following week, La Plazita and AFSC brought several volunteers to help the trainees plant the asparagus rootstock. This was two-year rootstock. We hand-planted it in rows with the roots laying flat and the crown of the root-stock facing the sky. We then covered the rootstock, leaving only the tip of the crown near the soil surface. We laid drip lines above the rows of planted rootstock and watered generously. Although this would not yield a harvest for two years, it required routine weeding and watering as well as pruning when the asparagus ferns went dormant after the growing season. The asparagus sent up tall bushy ferns that dried and turned brown in the fall. These needed to be pruned to ground level and then mounded with dirt for the winter months. The spears began shooting up in late March.

The history of the land used for this first asparagus planting is a valuable illustration of how these collaborations function. Tomas Martinez’ mother, Barbara, a widow, let us use her land. Her husband died farming it. The family was very moved that we turned it into a farm once again. Many family members came to help us create the farm, get the well going, etc. La Plazita named the farm site Nabor Martinez in honor of Tomas’ father. Again we used the collaborative model to set the farm up rather than just working with La Plazita Institute. It was a team effort.

The other major perennial plantings were at two sites: The Abeyta Site of Valle Encantado’s operation and the Sbarge site of e-mc’s operation. We planted about 500 blackberry roots at each site. The land preparation was similar to that of the asparagus sites: clearing debris, trees, weeds, trash, lumber, rocks, and roots. We then leveled and lightly amended the ground with compost. The blackberry roots were planted in rows, six-feet apart, with white clover in between as a cover crop. The irriga-

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tion set up at the Sbarge site used two-inch PVC tubing and orchard tubing along the rows. We used a simple drip and flood irrigation system at the Abeyta site. As a result, the Sbarge site had greater growth and yield. These landowners were persuaded to lend us their land because they liked our mission and saw our work. The impact of our project extended to others in the community via these land agreements.

The goal for the training program was to abundantly supply farm stands at three farmers’ markets—Nob Hill, Downtown, and Corrales Market—from May through October of 2010. This goal had to blend with the overlapping objective of producing premium quality salad greens on a weekly basis to supply APS.

Though AFSC always talked about crop selection in terms of high value, we encouraged the train-ees to also choose crops they were interested in growing alongside the high value crops we recom-mended, like salad mix. The network-wide crop plan we developed in the first year thus proved very instructive for the training program and the trainees. We selected crops that did not have a high enough market value to justify planting and tending them manually on a small scale (i.e., scallions, broccoli). It was a learning experience when farmers grew things they liked to eat and then discovered their low market value. We learned that in order to generate a viable profit, these crops required a large-scale operation. In the following years, we advised trainees not to focus on crops that required high labor and monetary investment. In years two and three, farmers and the partner organizations settled on a mix that took full advantage of high value crops like salad for APS and perennials for local restaurants and markets, while still growing food that they, and their communities, enjoyed.

Lessons Learned

AFSC launched the project with specific high value crops in mind like the salad for APS, the perennials, etc. It was important to consider high value crops when planning seed orders. Trainees also chose crops they were interested in growing alongside the high value crops we recommended, like salad mix. It was a learning experience when they chose low value things they liked to eat!

Since the AFSC-FTFTP was designed around the seasonal farming calendar for the local climate, we built and planted three cold frames in the late fall and winter of 2009–2010. The middle Río Grande region is fortunate to have manageable temperature extremes. This means that cold hardy crops will endure the winter lows (it usually gets down to 25–30 °F) and the warm weather crops can thrive in the hot part of the year (temperatures in June and July tend to rise to the upper 90s °F). This is not a hard and fast rule, but rather a general guideline for crop selection and planning the infrastructure necessary to extend the growing season.

In the first cold frame at La Plazita Gardens, we planted a salad mix of spinach, arugula, kale, col-lard greens, radishes, and turnips. The same assortment had already been planted at the second cold frame. In the third cold frame at e-mc’s site at Jardines de Moktezuma we planted a salad mix of aru-gula, spinach, carrots, radishes, cilantro, and chard. We worked as a team to dig beds, apply nutrient and amendments, set up irrigation, and plant these first three cold frames.

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It was in these cold frames that we learned tillage, bed preparation, soil amending, planting with seeders, setting drip lines, and irrigating. We also practiced thinning with an iron rake, hoe weed-ing, and aerating the soil once the seeds germinated. We used 0.80 gauge wire in five-foot sections to make hoops for floating row cover. We used Agribon AG-19 row cover to protect from frost inside the cold frame. Most leafy greens can withstand temperatures as low as 28 °F. Floating row cover keeps the ground temperature warmer than the air temperature, allowing cold hardy plants to thrive in freezing climates.

We learned to sequence plantings with the cycles of the moon: plant above ground crops during the waxing moon and root crops during the waning moon. This is based on traditional practice but also is tied to the gravitational pull of the moon and its effect on water molecules in plants. We also learned how shorter daylight hours reduce growth in the winter months. For example, there was not sufficient light six weeks before and after the winter solstice. That meant we had to have salad greens, spinach, radishes, kale, and collard planted by early November and could not replant until mid-February.

Third quarter of the training programIn March 2010, Agri-Cultura Network made its first sale of salad mix via a contract that Rio Grande Community Farms (RGCF) had with Albuquerque Public Schools. At that point our training pro-gram had worked hard to establish a consistent, high-volume supply of produce but we still had not secured markets for our crops. This was an ideal problem to have—much better than arranging to supply a buyer and them coming up short. We worked with trainees to learn the APS procurement process, and on marketing and business planning to prepare them for independent marketing to APS and other wholesale buyers. This was also the time to begin refining the approach to sequencing crops across multiple farm sites.

As a result of this sale, we learned a great deal about the challenges of balancing our productive ca-pacity with finding markets for produce that became abundantly available once the trainees adopted AFSC’s farming techniques.

Unfortunately, by selling the first high volume (more than 50 pounds) order of salad mix through an intermediary or broker (RGCF in this case) without clear internal operations, the farm trainee was allowed to continue doing business with the outside broker. This caused a conflict in operations since the RCGF representative, who was operating outside of RGCF’s supervision, began to com-pete against the Agri-Cultura Network at the same venues. A delay in establishing the Agri-Cultura Network’s operational agreement and codes of conduct meant that there was no regulation to prevent what eventually transpired. This prompted us to establish internal policies and operational standards that prohibited beneficiaries of grant-funded and community-supported programs (i.e., farm train-ees) from competing in the same markets as the network. In other words, a trainee could not sell to (either directly or through a broker) or compete with the Agri-Cultura Network at the same market. Under the new rules, it would be improper for an affiliated grower to undercut or compete at the same restaurant, grocery store, or institutional buyer with which the Agri-Cultura Network already had an account.

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Lessons Learned

Though operational agreements are often tedious to create and seem to counter the face-to-face forms of community accountability in traditional rural areas, they are essential tools for new and expanding networks of farmers. They ensure that everyone has the same expectations and sense of responsibility for their actions.

Ultimately, this spurred the directorship of the Network to formalize its operational agreement and operating standards. Up to this point, it was difficult to get consensus on what it meant to be a part-ner, owner, supplier, farmer, or employee of the Agri-Cultura Network.

March of 2010 also marked an important shift in the full year FTFTP. It was the midway point in the program and the established growing operations at emc and La Plazita Gardens required full time commitments from the trainees. We had to adjust the structure of trainings as the intensive growing and harvest season began. From October 2009 to March 2010 we had achieved a significant portion of our primary goal: to enter into the first growing season as a farmer network. At this point our first three trainees—Jeff, Joseph, and Fidel—were preparing to transition their production outdoors for the spring and summer months.

Lessons Learned

In order for the trainee program to address the needs of low income rural people, the project must recognize the complicated and sometimes overwhelming sets of obligations trainees have to their communities, families, jobs, and farms.

The training program shifted from group trainings for six-hours a day, three days a week, to one trainee check-in and one six-hour group training per week. This freed the trainees to work on their own farms, but also allowed them to honor their commitment to the group activities and shared experience. It was very important that each training site/project partner began planting their early season crops and got their indoor seed starts established for plant-ing after the last frost in May.

The third quarter, or March through May, of the training program was devoted to outdoor planting and planning for direct sales at three area farmers’ markets. Over this period, each trainee worked the sites that their host organization had secured for organic produce production. Thanks to the coor-dinated efforts and shared responsibilities of the AFSC project team, we conducted routine farm site visits and held weekly group training events regarding pertinent farm tasks.

Mid-to-late May marks the beginning of the farmers’ market season. The AFSC FTFTP advocated that organic farmers have diverse markets for their produce, ideally at the market stand, to restau-rants, and in aggregation to larger institutions. The first-year farm trainees featured their produce

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as grown in collaboration at farmers’ markets. The experience of aggregating produce for sale at a collective market stand was useful preparation for the large-scale aggregation necessary to sell to institutional markets like schools and cafeterias.

The first-year group of three trainees agreed to individually staff one of the three weekly growers’ markets at Nob Hill, Downtown, and Corrales. We discovered that a lot of time and energy goes into staffing and accounting for sales at the farmers’ market. It was a challenge to develop a transparent method for recording market inventory and then factoring actual sales versus estimated sales and calculating a margin of error to apply to all suppliers of that market stand.

There were several other logistical factors in selling produce collectively. Following are some of the main issues we encountered.

Labor commitment

The training program only provided stipends for about half the full-time labor commitment of the trainees. Ideally, the rest of the income would be generated from farm sales. This factored into how we staffed the farmers’ markets since it was a seven-to-eight hour commitment per market.

We reached an agreement with the three trainees that they should send produce to a farmers’ market but not staff that market themselves. However, we had to compensate the person who was essential-ly selling their produce for them. We recognized that market vending requires specialized skills in accounting, customer service, cash transactions, inventory management, serving suggestions, market set-up, breakdown, and reporting. Based on the skills required, we arrived at $10 per hour as an ap-propriate rate to pay someone to work the stand, for a total of $75 per market.

We also committed one trainee/organization to represent the network at each of the three weekly markets. We established a fee system to compensate the individual market vendor for selling produce from a partner farm. The loosely defined policy was that you had to pay the vendor $25 from the market sales if you staffed and worked a particular market. Should the trainee/organization be pres-ent to staff and operate the market, they did not need to pay that fixed fee.

Lessons Learned

Those who sold produce for partner farmers needed to be paid. We also implemented a thorough market inventory and accounting form that displays the amounts sold and unsold and applies a margin of error relative to the amount of produce sold per farmer.

Inventory management

Who brings what to each market? How do you prioritize similar crops from separate farm sites? How do you make sure that each partner organization gets equal access and representation at the farmers’ market stands?

Here’s how we addressed these important concerns: If all three farmers produced the same item, each would send an equal part and share the unsold amount in return. Eventually, since each farm oper-ation oversaw a single farmers’ market, they prioritized sales of their own produce before displaying and vending a partner farm’s produce.

Lessons Learned

Lessons Learned: Coordinating crop selection and planting schedules allowed farmers to share in a segment of the abundance that is currently at our stands.

Conduct

We learned a few techniques that helped inspire customers to stop at our market stands and return to buy from us:

• “Pile it high, watch it fly” was Don Bustos’ saying for how to display produce. The more abundant the market stand, the greater the sales.

• Do not sit down!

• Make eye contact!

• Make change in the open before taking customer’s cash.

• Breakdown as you go—no one buys the last bunch of carrots that is laying alone on a large tray. Replenish stock to keep tables looking full. Break the stand down as you sell out of certain items. Transfer the last few bunches of any particular item to smaller containers and tables as you sell off your inventory.

Quality control

It was important that all produce be premium quality and have some similarity in sizing, bunching, and presentation. In the beginning of the NIFA project, we worked on the sale sites and processed the produce cooperatively. Once the trainees expanded to their own sites, it was challenging to maintain consistency and quality control. We also had to deal with reducing food waste when we overstocked produce or when market attendance was low.

Initially, we attempted to return unsold produce to our cold storage and sell it at a subsequent mar-ket. This proved too challenging for documentation and clear record keeping. Over time we learned to obtain more accurate estimates of how much of each item to bring. Any produce that remained after the market was returned to the supplier with the earned revenues (minus the margin of error deduction).

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We learned to adapt to specific considerations of how to handle certain crops (leafy greens versus peppers and tomatoes) and how to factor in the time of day the market took place (early morning or afternoon). We also recognized that quality control standards could be implemented, but that the individual vendor had the final word on what would be for sale on the market stand on a given day. Once the vendor, whether that was a trainee or a representative of the network, gained famil-iarity with the appearance and quality that was the standard at the Agri-Cultura Network stand, they could eliminate items that were intended for sale but did not meet quality standards.

Lessons Learned

We implemented an intake form for receiving farmer produce. This form served as a record of produce sold through ACN as well as a rating of the produce quality. In the example of salad mix, ACN could deduct a percentage of a farmer supplies salad that had significant incidence of weeds, debris, bugs, and/or dirt.

Storage

Farm operations benefited from a shared storage space in the cold storage room at the commu-nity kitchen at the South Valley Economic Development Center. This space was literally the size of a shipping pallet. It was suggested that produce be harvested, processed, and stored the day prior to market. Eight hours of cold storage is ideal for prolonging the shelf life of perishable produce. However, this did not always work out since many farmers harvested on the very day of afternoon markets.

Produce that would otherwise wilt required a refrigerated storage space, while other produce such as tomatoes and eggplant required dry storage without refrigeration. We also needed secure storage space for the market materials (tables, tents, signs, baskets, bags, scale, and bank). Ideally, the market vendor only needed to make two stops before going to market.

Lessons Learned

There should be a central location for cold storage, dry storage, and market supplies . We accomplished this by operating out of the South Valley Economic Development Center and Mixing Bowl Community Kitchen.

Labeling and invoicing

Since our vendors depended on someone else to sell their produce, it was very important that the stored produce have clear labels that indicated the following: farm origin, harvest date, item, amount, and destination. Labeling helped prevent confusion and product loss, especially when the same stor-age facility was used for multiple suppliers (farmers) and multiple destinations.

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It was also a good practice to leave a receipt or an invoice with the produce that the vendor wanted someone else to sell. This provided double verification of what was left in the collective storage space. This also increased efficient documentation and record keeping for market vendors. The label, in-voice, and actual prepared produce had to match. The market vendor verified that they matched and then applied changes to the documentation should there be produce that did not go to market.

Lessons Learned

Labeling and invoicing is very important. All containers should list the following: date of harvest/washing; crop; amount; origin; destination. Farmers should leave a receipt or invoice that records the amount of produce turned in to the Network. This protects the farmer in case of product loss, but it also serves as a good accounting practice.

Market supplies

It was a challenge to transport all of the market stand supplies and the produce without a truck or a van. In many cases, two cars were necessary, but this depended on the amount of produce we intend-ed to take to market. Following is a list of what we had to bring to sell at a market stand: two to three folding eight-foot tables, tablecloths, baskets, signs, pop-up tent, ground cover, washing station, bank box with a $100 cash bank, spray bottle, and produce bags. These were arranged in an appealing way. Some vendors liked to use dry-erase boards to list items for sale. Others printed publicity materials or serving suggestions for their produce. It was vital for us to have these materials set up, put produce on display, and be ready to conduct transactions by the time the market opened.

Lessons Learned

We coordinated around several markets by having a network planning meeting every Monday to pay out earnings from weekend sales and to requisition produce for upcoming markets. This was also a good opportunity to coordinate where the market supplies and produce was stored. This reduced any confusion or delays in setting up the market stand in a timely fashion.

Accounting

The accounting took place before and after market day. Before the market, we counted out the $100 bank and documented the monetary increments in the bank. It was important to have $10 worth of change, preferably in quarters, nickels, and dimes—no pennies. We kept smaller denominations in the bank with only a few $10 and $20 bills.

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After the market ended, the vendor would go to a secluded place (it was in poor taste to count earn-ings in front of other vendors) and count out the till (the total cash, checks, wooden market coins, WIC checks, and IOUs). The vendor then worked out the $100 bank in smaller increments and de-ducted that amount from the total earnings. This resulted in the actual revenue. Rarely was the actual revenue equal to the estimated revenue. The estimated revenue is the sum total of the retail sale price brought to market.

Finally, the vendor calculated the margin of error (actual revenue divided by estimated revenue) and multiplied this percentage by the estimated revenue to determine the payout to each supplier.

For example, let’s say that La Plazita supplied five pounds of salad mix at $8/lb for an estimated total of $40; emc supplied 20 pounds of tomatoes at $4/lb for an estimated total of $80; and Valle Encantado supplied 30 pounds of squash at $2/lb for an estimated total of $60. In this case, the total estimated sales would be $180 worth of produce. However, a number of factors could alter the actual revenue earned, including damaged or lost produce, bartered produce, and incorrect transactions. Assuming the entire inventory sold out, let’s say that there is $150 of actual revenue after we count the bank. Dividing $150 by $180 gives you a margin of error percentage of 0.83 or 83 percent return on estimated sales. Now multiply 0.83 by the estimated total of $180 and factor out for each supplier. If you multiply 0.83 by the $40 value of La Plazita’s produce, they would have $33.20 in actual reve-nue. Multiply 0.83 by $80 from emc and 0.83 by $60 from Valle Encantado, and the final returns for each are $66.40 and $49.80, respectively.

In terms of accounting, it took us a few months to get into the rhythm of meeting on Mondays to report on the previous week’s sales and plan for the coming week. We found that Nob Hill Market brought in from $200 to $400 weekly, Corrales Market did from $300 to $500 weekly, and Downtown Market earned $800 to $1,400 per week. This revenue was shared among farm organizations in the Agri-Cultura Network and in certain cases trainees benefited from earnings too. Ideally these funds should be reinvested in the farm operation to replant for the late-season harvest.

At the same weekly meeting where accounting issues were discussed we also coordinated the orders for wholesale deliveries to restaurants in Albuquerque and the La Montañita food co-op. At this point, the FTFTP focused on harvest, post-harvest handling, processing, and aggregation. AFSC training staff assisted and trained with trainees at their farm sites or processing areas. This was the routine through the third quarter of the year-round program—May, June, and July of 2010.

Lessons Learned

Because farmer’s market’s can sustain higher prices/pound than wholesale contracts, there was a tendency for farmers to want to devote most of their produce to farmer’s market sales. It took some time for farmers to value wholesale accounts for their consistency and the extended season these sales provide. It remains a challenge for most farmers in the project to find the best balance between farmer’s market and wholesale sales.

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Fourth quarter of the training programThe final quarter of the training program entailed maintain-ing the growers’ market sales three days per week, deliver-ing to between five and seven restaurants, and expanding to supply Albuquerque Public Schools’ (APS) local food program. By this time, Agri-Cultura Network had obtained vendor status to supply APS’ Locally Grown Program. This program serves the Valley Cluster of the APS system, a total of 12 schools, and is funded by an allocation from the New Mexico State Legislature that supports New Mexico-grown products in the APS Foodservice Division.

Keeping up with all of this required a coordinated land preparation and planting system. Trainees learned to manage time and labor to expand outdoor production to begin supplying APS in August. AFSC farm trainees began sequenced planting of salad mix in July. The decision was made to focus on a single crop, salad mix, that we knew could be grown in cold frames through the winter and complied with school lunch menus. We later discovered that we could have grown several other crops on the APS food service bid throughout the cold months.

Lessons Learned

APS Foodservice Division must feed large numbers and meet nutrition standards while aiming to satisfy students’ tastes. We relied on salad mix as a way to understand the local food program at APS. We learned that institutional buyers tend to require staple varieties of produce like lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, spinach, and peppers. In later years, Agri-Cultura began to bid for and supply more produce items to APS.

The purpose of establishing these markets was not to over-produce or over-extend efforts. Instead, when aggregated, small farmers could share the responsibility of supplying APS and restaurants in winter months to maintain on-farm activity. It is a less intense productive period, but the farm draws in revenue and prevents the need to seek off-farm income.

We learned in the first year of the FTFTP that APS had a limited amount to spend on local produce, and that it required produce in certain increments and within specific delivery windows. The typical

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weekly order from APS was 144 pounds of salad mix. This was delivered in 24 boxes at six pounds per box (packaged in two, three pound bags3).

Over the course of several weeks, we refined our harvest, processing, and packaging system. Typically, if all three farm operations had salad mix to sell they split the order three ways (48 pounds multiplied by each of the three farm sites). Farmers would begin harvesting at dawn and bring cut lettuce to the washing and sorting station. Until we obtained a permit to sort and wash salad in the South Valley Economic Development Center, we used the kitchen in La Plazita Institute. We sorted the salad on four, eight-foot tables that were sanitized with diluted bleach solution. We wore hats or hairnets and kept our hands clean as we sorted weeds, bugs, wilted leaves, and debris from the freshly harvested greens. We then conducted a double or triple rinse depending on the incidence of pests.

Lessons Learned

It takes time and effort to meet the requirements of large wholesale clients. Meeting the preference for organic certified produce increases this time and logistical commitment.

The most common nuisance pests were snails, slugs, and caterpillars that lodged at the base of the leaves and went undiscovered sometimes even after delivery. Aphids were common, but they washed off easily in the sink. Larval ladybugs clung to leaves as well. It was important to remove or rinse off all pests, dirt, and debris. When the snails got bad we added another step—a sea salt wash prior to hypochlorite solution and freshwater rinse—to prevent our customers from the shock of a pest in their salad mix. In fact, we had a snail problem in our first year and had to implement additional steps in washing, rinsing, and packaging.

3 Preferably in 13-gallon, latex-free plastic food-grade bags

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Elaboration of steps for salad harvest:

1. Cut leaves no longer than 6”.

2. Sort on a flat surface.

3. Wash by submerging in hypochlorite solution (1 part per million chlorine bleach and water).

3a. If there is incidence of slugs and snails, then add additional wash of one cup of sea salt per sink full.

4. Rinse in freshwater.

5. Spin dry.

6. Weigh in three-pound increments in food grade plastic bags.

7. Pack two, three-pound bags per wax box.

8. Label side of box the following: Origin, date, item, destination, amount.

It required major coordination and timeliness to maintain a premium quality supply of produce to La Montañita Co-op, five-to-seven restaurants, and Albuquerque Public Schools. By the fall of 2010, the Agri-Cultura Network and the AFSC-FTFTP had trained three farm managers and began the second year of the training program.

We were supplying tomatoes, salad mix, green beans, peas, arugula, bok choy, squash, chilies, cucum-bers, chard, kale, collards, and more to the local organic grocery cooperative, La Montañita. We sup-plied weekly accounts to The Grove, Artichoke Café, Farina Pizzeria, 5 Star Burgers, Relish Sandwich Shop, Farm and Table Restaurant, Los Poblanos Inn, The Hyatt Regency Hotel, and Café Green. We had a weekly bid for 144 pounds of salad mix to APS during the school year and added an account with Albuquerque Academy later in the following year.

Growing Yields: In the first year of the training program, the three trainees produced 11,100 lbs of food. In the second year of the training program, the trainees and graduates more than doubled that yield with 27,804 lbs of food. Sales almost tripled from the first to the second year.

Interestingly, in the first year of our produce bid to APS we were outbid by another small farm develop-ment agency based in Santa Fe. APS distributes a list of items that they will purchase from the local food allocation. We had an unofficial agreement to share the bid items to APS among the entities that were eligible to bid for the Lot II local produce bid. APS is required to announce the bid awards and they must award the bid to the lowest bidder. The Santa Fe based agency bid for Salad Mix at $4/lb. This was a dollar less than our bid price of $5/lb. In the end, the other supplier could not fulfill their order and Agri-Cultura and the training program supplied the 144-pound demand for locally grown salad to APS.

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Lessons Learned

It is difficult for small farmers to compete on the open market. That is why adding value to their production through organic certification and community-based approaches stimulates higher produce prices. However, the market for locally grown, organic produce is small and competitive. It is important that small farmers and their advocate organizations collaborate to increase market access across the board rather than drive prices down for struggling farmers.

The first year of the AFSC Farmer-to-Farmer Training Program was important because it helped us develop our vision of how to train new farmers to form a functioning network that aggregates produce for sale to the local market. We learned how to implement a viable, year-round, organic farm operation in the middle Río Grande Valley of New Mexico. Through this process, AFSC was able to build a reputation of sincere cooperation and collaboration through popular and experiential ap-proaches to farmer training and capacity building. Following is a list of the 15 themes covered in the year-round AFSC Farmer-to-Farmer Training Program (with brief explanations):

1. Land preparation – annual and perennial growing areas, cold frame area

2. Seed and crop selection – annual and perennial selection, seed purchase

3. Irrigation – installation and use, drip systems, acequia systems, hybrid retention systems

4. Soil building and amendment – premium compost, NPK, blood meal and bone meal

5. Weed suppression – hand weeding techniques, hoe weeding

6. Integrated pest management

7. Harvest timing and management

8. Post-harvest handling – wash station, salad spinner

9. Quality control

10. Farm machinery use and care – tillers, tractors, weed eaters, mowers

11. Tool inventory and care – shovels, iron rakes, machetes, stirrup hoe

12. Farm planning

13. Business planning

14. Season extension – floating row cover, high tunnel cold frames

15. Labor management

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Part Two: Network Formation

IntroductionA major objective of the NIFA-funded project was to establish a network of farmers that would aggregate produce for markets not traditionally accessible to small-scale, organic farmers. This section examines the requirements, opportunities, and challenges encountered as the AFSC Farm-er-to-Farmer Training Program helped establish the Agri-Cultura Network (ACN) and then devel-oped a farmer-owned and driven collaborative. This collaborative allowed farmers to aggregate their harvest to access larger-scale markets and achieve the stated goal of supplying Albuquerque Public Schools (APS) with produce throughout the school year. We outline the steps we took to obtain vendor status at APS and submit our bid to the APS Foodservice Division, as well as how we got a business license, a county environmental health permit, well registration permits, and a Federal Em-ployee Identification number (FEIN), and organic certification.

From the beginning, the project built in quarterly check-ins, a half-day meeting where the project’s stakeholders assembled to bring each other up to date on our activities and plan for upcoming needs. All trainees, farm managers, organizational partners, and AFSC staff attended these quarterly meet-ings, which facilitated communication between all participants, convened a periodic check-in about how things were going, and most importantly, created a space for everyone to discuss strategies for moving the project forward. Periodic evaluation surveys, interviews and focus groups were helpful in providing important feedback that helped us to refine our operations. These meetings were also a good opportunity to plan across the network with project partners and the AFSC team.

At an early quarterly meeting, participants agreed to form a steering committee of trainee/farmers, organization directors, and AFSC staff to discuss the desirability and feasibility of aggregated produc-tion. The impetus of this discussion was a desire to ensure capacity to supply APS.

Naming the networkAround February 2010, the AFSC’S New Mexico program convened several planning and visioning exercises to deter-mine the initial steps for establishing a farmer network and eventually supplying Albuquerque Public Schools (APS). Early into the project, the AFSC training team (Don Bustos, Sayrah Namaste, and Patrick Staib) worked closely with the first-year trainees (Jeff Warren, Joseph Alfaro, and Fidel González) to determine our vision, mission, and objectives while also coordinating our efforts to receive and store six cold frame kits.

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We listed important values and themes that we wanted to emphasize in this farming endeavor. We had a scribe take notes on the white erase board in the conference room at the South Valley Eco-nomic Development Center (SVEDC). Of all of the values and themes listed, the ones that stood out were community, tradition, environment, food security, equality, jobs, autonomy, sustainability, and nutrition. Fidel suggested the name “Agri-Cultura Network” because it reflected the historical culture of agriculture in the South Valley. We then coined the initial mission as: “Community-based organi-zations farming together para la comunidad.” This evolved into the following mission statement: “to empower community through farm production and job creation to increase self-determination and sustainability.”

Naming our activity and describing our mission was a watershed moment, even though a lot of work remained to legally form the network and begin producing vegetables and greens year-round.

The Agri-Cultura Network operated throughout the duration of the grant and plans to continue beyond the time frame of this project. The Agri-Cultura Network has already obtained other fund-ing support and is working throughout the community to create additional opportunities for small farmers to gain access to high value markets in the Albuquerque metro region. The network currently exists as a local produce broker and continues to supply local groceries, farmers’ markets, restaurants, Albuquerque Academy, and Albuquerque Public Schools.

Insurance coverageOnce we had a name and a mission statement, the next step was to obtain liability insurance to cover any damage incurred from the consumption of our produce. The FDA considers leafy greens, spinach, and salad mix to be a “potentially hazardous food item” primarily because they are con-sumed raw and have no protective layer or rind. Insurance coverage is vital for an enterprise that sells perishable produce to be resold or served in meals on the open market. This type of insurance is known as a “Third Party Liability Policy.” Market gardeners are not required to have this coverage, but vendors to intermediaries, like grocers, school food service, and restaurants generally require the food distributor have this coverage. It costs about $500 per year and covers damages up to $1 million.

Lessons Learned

A Third Party Liability Policy should be counted in business planning as an up-front cost, especially if the project is not going to be subsidized by a grant or community organization.

Once we had the insurable entity, The Agri-Cultura Network, we were able to shop for policies. Since we would be renting kitchen space for salad washing and cold storage, we also needed a policy to cover damage to rented spaces. In effect, we needed two forms of coverage to operate as we intended. Working in collaboration allowed us to share burdens such as these that are typically prohibitive for small farmers entering new markets.

26

After attempting to purchase these policies directly, the project coordinator, Patrick Staib, found that an insurance broker could make the process much simpler. The local broker we found, Brown, Seligman, and Thomas, found a suitable policy through The Hartford insurance agency. All produce coming from Agri-Cultura partner farms was covered under these blanket policies.

Lessons Learned

A local insurance brokerage firm can attend to many levels of coverage for liability on the farm or coverage for the produce you grow.

Cold storage and kitchen rental spaceThe South Valley Economic Development Center (SVEDC) has office spaces and a commercial kitchen for rent to local food entrepreneurs such as caterers and bakers. The SVEDC signed a letter of support for AFSC’s initial funding proposal to NIFA. They also offered a discount rate for the use of their facility.

The SVEDC belongs to Bernalillo County and is regulated by the Bernalillo County Environmental Health Department. (BCEHD). They require kitchen users to be trained in food handling procedures. The county also trains potential kitchen users to submit their operational procedures, labeling, and the origins of their ingredients. Some businesses were required to have their product tested at a laboratory to list the nutritional information. Fortunately, our leafy greens did not have to pass this test.

The SVEDC training seminar taught us how to detail our sanitation processes and procedures for washing, spin-drying, bagging, boxing, and labeling salad mix and leafy greens. However, early in 2010 our immediate need was to have access to the cold storage room in the SVEDC kitchen. This cold storage is kept at 45°F and is large enough to house supplies for many businesses. We began by renting a pallet’s worth of space. In order to comply with county regulations, we had to use the pallet to stack our boxed produce since the food could not touch the floor.

Steering committee formationIn order to obtain vendor status and submit a produce bid to APS, we had to form a legal business entity with a tax identification number (FEIN) and an in-state reporting number (CRS). Prior to this, the stakeholders in the project formed a steering committee to work on their operational agreement and obtain vendor status at the public schools.

A thorough explanation of the steps necessary to register a legal business entity is available online at https://tap.state.nm.us/faq/crsfaq.htm. This excerpt from the state website explains the New Mexico CRS number:

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Persons engaging in business in New Mexico must register with the New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department . With few exceptions, a business must hold a Combined Reporting Sys-tem (CRS) identification number, also known as your State Tax identification number . CRS is the Department’s method for reporting the State’s major business taxes: gross receipts tax, all local option gross receipts taxes, compensating tax, and withholding tax .

In March 2010, six months into the project, we held our second quarterly check-in. The application deadline for APS vendor status was quickly approaching so we decided to form a steering commit-tee that would meet regularly to establish a legal entity that could supply APS and other markets. The three organization directors and the three first-year farm trainees offered to participate on the Agri-Cultura Steering Committee.

Beginning in April 2010, the directors of the partner organizations (Albino Garcia from La Plazita Institute, Pablo Lopez from e-merging communities, and Henry Rael from Valle Encantado) agreed to meet every two weeks to iron out the details of creating a legal business entity.

When thinking about the type of business we wanted to form, we had a few options. A cooperative was an ideal choice, but establishing a co-op was a struggle given the tight schedules we had to deal with and the fact that participants did not have ample time to devote to this process. The challenge in forming a cooperative was the decision of how to distribute the profits as dividends at the end of the year. Neither the AFSC training team nor the community partners could suggest articles of incorpo-ration that explains revenue sharing before there was any significant revenue to speak of.

A sole proprietorship would have likely overburdened a single individual or organization. For the sake of efficiency, the steering committee decided to form a Limited Liability Corporation as a part-nership across the partner organizations. The ACN is now shifting its organizational structure to a nonprofit cooperative organization. The LLC served its purpose in establishing the ACN as a viable and legally registered enterprise in order to get sales going.

By now it was June 2010 and the application for vendor status at APS was due in July, so the ACN coordinator worked closely with Henry Rael of Valle Encantado to submit the proper paperwork to the IRS and obtain a tax ID number or Federal Employer Identification Number. This is the equiva-lent of a social security number for businesses. Once obtained, we could apply with the New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department to get a CRS number and finally apply for a business checking account.

Regulatory permits and certificationsIt took a long time to obtain an environmental health permit from Bernalillo County because of delays in obtaining a permit for a well on one of Agri-Cultura’s farm sites. In our original permit application, we listed water sources at three sites: the County Open Space well at the Sanchez Farm, a domestic well at Jardines de Moktezuma (emc site at Fidel’s), and municipal water at Valle Encanta-do’s site at 1011 Lena Street. ACN was fortunate to have La Plazita Institute as an alternate processing facility until we could get a permit to operate in the SVEDC kitchen.

The food permit was necessary to wash salad mix and leafy greens in the certified commissary at the SVEDC kitchen. While many buyers of ACN produce did not require that we operate through

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a commissary, it was an important factor in ensuring quality and freshness. Harvesting, sorting, and washing for farmers’ markets is a challenge when using on-site or outdoor processing stations. Outdoor or on-site processing stations are not subject to as much regulatory oversight as certified kitchens. However, operating at the SVEDC allowed for salad and leafy green sorting and washing at any point of the day in a well-lit, climate-controlled area.

Since it took significant time and energy to obtain the county health permit due to an undocumented well at Fidel’s farm, the project coordinator worked with the NM Office of the State Engineer (OSE) to research archival records of water use on Fidel’s land. Essentially, the landowner needed to prove the existence of a well on the property at 203 Riverside Drive (Fidel’s farm) prior to the expansion of Bernalillo County’s jurisdiction over those water sources. In other words, residents of the South Valley had wells and surface water in use prior to having to document use to the county.

Lessons Learned

Legal requirements for certifying farms are complicated where histories of land displacement and encroachment overlay regulatory requirements on traditional land tenure. Make sure to budget time for navigating that bureaucratic system.

We obtained a well record that documented the establishment of the well at 203 Riverside prior to 1987, when Bernalillo County took jurisdiction over water rights in the South Valley. This well record and the deed to the property needed to have the same property owner’s name on them in order to is-sue a permit to use a well at this property. It took nearly ten months to clear up the red tape to obtain the well permit and then the county food permit.

Procurement process for APSOnce we acquired the proper legal business status and a liability policy for the network’s produce, we were eligible to apply for vendor status at APS. This was a simple form to fill out, but it had to be submitted by July 2010 in order to be invited to submit a produce bid to the Procurement Division at APS. The Procurement Division is responsible for all purchasing and contracts for the entire school district.4 This means that even though ACN’s project volume for sale to APS was relatively small, it was still necessary to comply with all of the legal and regulatory procedures for submitting a bid to access public funds through the school district.

APS assigned a contract number that had to appear on its invoices to the APS Foodservice Division upon receipt of produce. Essentially, ACN was in the APS Procurement Division as a produce suppli-er. We would only have to wait for the announcement of the bid to APS.

4 According to the U.S. Department of Education, Albuquerque Public Schools ranks 28th nationwide based on enroll-ment data from 2006-2009.

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The APS Foodservice Produce Bid came in a large envelope with instructions and several sheets that listed fresh produce items. There were two separate packets. One packet listed produce for Lot I, or the general school district bid. Large food suppliers tended to qualify for this bid because of the volume and price point it provides. The second, shorter packet was Lot II, or the locally grown food program. Lot II items could only come from within the state of New Mexico and tended to be small amounts at higher prices. The bid forms are now available as PDF documents on the APS Procure-ment website.5

The APS Lot II Bid list reflects the items for purchase through a NM State Legislature allocation to the Foodservice Division. Lot II is inherently less competitive since large-scale suppliers cannot ob-tain high volumes within the state of New Mexico. The AFSC Farmer Training Program focused on obtaining a bid to supply salad mix to APS throughout the school year.

The decision to focus on salad was based on a variety of factors. It is a quick-growing crop, can pro-duce high volumes for the labor required, is in consistent demand, fits well into school lunch menus, prefers cooler climates, and can tolerate below freezing temperatures. This decision was instructive on many levels. We learned how the procurement process at APS works. We learned to plan and sequence our crop. Most importantly, the farmers of the Agri-Cultura Network learned to cooper-ate to compete in high-value markets and combine their harvests to secure consistent demand from restaurants and institutions.

Lessons Learned

Collaborative/ aggregated marketing requires a willingness to share both burdens and opportunities of collectively planned sequencing and production. This is necessary in order for farmers to get the financial and social benefit of competing in reliable high-value markets.

5 www.aps.edu/procurement

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Part Three: Market Aggregation

Market aggregation in a farmer networkThe following sections de-scribe how the Agri-Cultura Network (ACN) aggregated produce across multiple farm operations. This occurs at very high rates on industrialized agribusiness operations, but the small-scale entrepreneurial model promoted by AFSC en-courages farmers to cooperate for shared access to infrastruc-ture and greater markets. This section builds on what was discovered regarding produc-tivity and marketing capacity as a result of the NIFA-funded farmer training and economic development project. While part one focused on the important aspects of collaborating to supply a farmers’ market stand, the focus of part three is on aggregation for wholesale marketing.

Sales and account managementAt ACN, the salesperson established accounts and explored new opportunities in the local market. The operations manager then oversaw processing, inventory, invoicing, and distribution. We found that it was appropriate to consider conducting sales visits once premium quality produce was on hand and there was a surplus ready to sell wholesale prices (about 40 percent less than retail). There were different approaches to obtaining accounts with three different tiers of the local produce mar-ket: natural grocers like the local La Montañita Food Co-op, nationally known chains such as Whole Foods market, and higher end restaurants and hotels.

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Lessons Learned

Though centralizing these operations improved marketing and back office efficiency, project participants noted that rotating these responsibilities periodically among participants (farmers, organization directors, and staff) would have broadened the knowledge base and better prepared participants to take over these activities once the grant was over and AFSC withdrew.

Grocery Accounts: While ACN only worked directly with the local member-owned co-op, La Mon-tañita Food Co-op, we conducted sales meetings with produce managers at Whole Foods Market and Sunflower Market to no avail. A distributor or grocer will want to visit the farm site. Some market chains require a vendor account.

La Montañita Co-op provides fair market prices to many small local farmers, but there are constant concerns about quality, consistency, and quantities of marketable produce. It was important to know the produce managers personally and stay in regular contact. Based on our experience, we recom-mend that to initiate an account, you set up a face-to-face meeting and bring premium samples, price lists on official letterhead, and a year-round crop plan. Also ask about pricing and delivery schedules. And make a conservative estimate of what you can provide, which will hopefully prevent you from falling short on an order.

Lessons Learned

A local brokerage must compete against professionals in the foodservice industry and agribusiness. First impressions last forever. Impress your clients with the best quality produce, abundant bunches, and thorough explanations of availability of quality produce and pricing.

Natural foods and organic grocery markets specialize in value-added products that benefit individ-ual health, the community, and the environment. A common dilemma in producing a high-value perishable product is the difficulty of securing the necessary price point to make the production viable. Pricing high tends to create less demand, but increased volume reduces price and requires more labor. La Montañita has been ACN’s longest standing account. Some weeks La Montañita alone would channel ACN produce to two Albuquerque stores, the Santa Fe store, and even Whole Foods in Santa Fe.

Restaurant accounts: We recommend that you make contact with the chef or kitchen manager in charge of ordering produce. Schedule a meeting and bring samples, price lists, and crop plans. Dis-cuss delivery times and dates. Try your best to accommodate these accounts because they pay closer to retail prices for freshness and premium quality.

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Lessons Learned

Group deliveries into as few days as possible. Apply rush or late order surcharges. Also, consider requiring a minimum purchase for delivery.

HarvestHarvesting for aggregation takes significant coordination in timing and quality control. Agri-Cultura focused on supplying an aggregated harvest of salad mix to APS over the school year. ACN also ag-gregated tomatoes, radishes, beets, chilies, carrots, and other crops to restaurants and grocery buyers. First light of day turned out to be the ideal time to harvest leafy green and salad mix, although later in the morning was permissible for cooler months. Ideally, crops should be watered the day before harvest to increase turgor (cellular strength in plant tissue) and shelf life.

For our APS bid, ACN farmers began harvesting early Wednesday for a Thursday morning delivery. Each of the three farm operations in ACN employed two to three harvest personnel to trim salad mix from atop the growing beds with sharp knives and plastic tubs. We preferred hand harvesting to using a “greens harvester” (a long serrated blade that is connected to a canvas bag) so that a single salad cutter could field sort as he or she harvested. In the cool, early part of the day one person could harvest up to 12 pounds per hour. However, it got hot inside the cold frame, even in the winter, and productivity waned over the course of the day.

Lessons Learned

Pay close attention to the dew point during cold months. Do not uncover or harvest greens when the dew point is low and the temperature is low too. However, harvesting as early as possible is the best practice for ensuring freshness and longer lasting shelf life.

Farmers harvested into 13-gallon plastic bags. They weighed the bags off the field and then wrote the weight and farm name on the bag with a marker. We harvested about three to five pounds per bag and tied the bag loosely with some air inside to cushion the lettuce. Many farmers refined this process by investing in reusable and washable harvest vessels like bread crates or heavy-duty wax boxes and then transferring directly to an on-site washing station. Wire or straw baskets allowed for the wide, flat space and ventilation that freshly harvested greens prefer. ACN farmers sanitized leafy greens and salad mix either at their on-site washing station or, if they aggregated, at the commissary kitchen.

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Post-harvest handling procedures for salad greensThe following steps ensured cleanliness and premium quality standards for salad greens. These procedures commenced once the first ten pounds were harvested. Please note: Applying organically certified insect repellents and insecticidal soaps might ease the process of post-harvest handling.

Step 1: Sort — All salad was sorted on two, eight-foot tables before going into the rinse. This meant dumping the salad onto a clean work surface and sorting out weeds, wilted leaves, and any possible insects or snails. We then performed a triple rinse in a stainless steel sink.

Step 2: Wash — We put food-grade chlorine bleach diluted into a basin filled with water. We then dunked and swirled the salad in this basin.

Step 3: Sea Salt Soak — In the second basin, we diluted a cup of sea salt in the full basin of water. Then we soaked the salad in this basin for a few minutes.

Step 3: Rinse — We filled a third basin only with fresh water. After the sea salt soak, we transferred the salad greens to the fresh water rinse in the third basin.

Step 4: Strain and Spin Dry — We removed the salad greens from the rinse basin, allowing excess water to strain off of the salad. Then we filled the Electrolux Greens Machine with greens evenly. We set the timer to five minutes and wait-ed for the cycle to finish.

Step 5: Package — We weighed out three-pound amounts of greens into plastic bags. We had to be vigilant for by-products or insects at this phase too. We then tied the three-pound bags and packed two per box.

Step 6: We stored the produce in the cold storage at SVEDC.

Quality controlWe found that quality control began in the field. Weeding and watering in a timely fashion encouraged optimal produc-tivity, but ultimately quality control combined sanitation and sorting to ensure safety and premium quality. Sanita-tion and sorting were extreme-ly important in order to retain high-value markets and main-tain a good reputation.

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Sorting was the process of separating debris, insects, dirt, weeds, wilted leaves, and damaged pro-duce. This happened at each stage of harvesting and processing, but there was a general sort before the first wash of salads and leafy greens. Shaking the greens onto a large flat surface knocked loose bugs and debris. Spreading the greens to a single layer made it easier to sort out poor quality product or unwanted items.

Sanitation had more to do with cleansing the food contact surfaces in the processing and packaging facility. It also meant food handlers had to wash their hands, wear gloves and hairnets, and ”dis-closure of poor health agreements” to minimize the risk of food contamination. Produce had to be rotated and delivered fresh, and all contact surfaces had to be washed with sanitizing solution prior to and after use.

Packaging and labeling The compressor in cold storage dried out greens and leaves on bulb vegetables and unwrapped pro-duce. Hard skin products like peppers, cucumbers, and squash could be packaged directly in a wax box, but beets, carrot bunches, chard, radish, turnips, and loose greens had to be packaged in plastic and a wax box.

Clear labeling helped us avoid confusion or product loss. We adhered labels to a side panel of the box, ideally on one end of the box and facing outside on shelves or storage pallets. A label had to be large enough to read from afar and include the following information: produce item, amount, date of harvest, farm origin, address, email address, phone number, and business name.

Delivery and invoicingProduce had to be transported during the cool part of the day. Many restaurants would not receive deliveries during the lunch or dinner rush. Ideally, produce is cooled in transit, but it is permis-sible to travel up to 30 minutes with produce above 45 °F, according to food handling regulators. Deliveries were grouped together to save on fuel. We also found that, if possible, produce should be delivered in a covered vehicle.

The delivery driver needed to provide a duplicate copy of the invoice for the delivery. The person receiving the delivery had to sign both copies. We left one copy with the delivery and took one back to the business office of the farm (or farmer network).

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Appendix

Sample farm planDate:____________________________

Name of Farm________________________________________________________________

What is the size of the farm? Size of the rows? How many rows?

Vegetable

Planting dates

# of rows planted

Est. date of harvest

Est. Crop yield

Est. income

Name the markets for the crops:

Estimate expenses, including farm materials and labor costs.

Other notes:

© 2013 American Friends Service Committee

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Sample job descriptionAFSC New Mexico training program

Work/Experience Desired: Should have enthusiasm for organic farming, as well as for agricultural education and hunger relief, and must be able to take on the physically challenging schedule and tasks of the farming season. Must work well both individually and in community. Experience with or interest in working with farm equipment is preferred.. Farmer trainee is involved in all aspects of food production, distribution, and record-keeping . Duties involve greenhouse work, bed prepara-tion, seeding and transplanting, weed control, insect and disease control, soil management, irrigation activities, leading volunteer groups, harvesting, post harvest handling, and marketing. This position works closely with the Farm Manager and is supervised by AFSC.

All training is free. Travel to training sites outside of Albuquerque will be paid for. Admissions to approved conferences is paid for.

Details about Training: Trainings will take place on site at farms in the South Valley and also at San-ta Cruz Farm near Espanola. There will be additional field trips at sites around New Mexico as well as opportunities to attend conferences.

Time Commitment: In general, training takes place 3 days a week, 6–8 hours per day and farm trainees are expected to implement learnings at the farm the other days of the week. Approx 50 weeks of the year with a break near Christmas. Trainees are paid a stipend not an hourly wage.

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Sample MOU

Memorandum of Understanding between Farmers and Landowners

© American Friends Service Committee. Do not copy any portion of this document.

This Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) is a binding contract between the following two participants for the following services, duties and responsibilities. Participants Farmer Org. 555 Five Points Rd SW Albuquerque NM 55555 Landowner Ms. D. Chavez 1111 Chavez Ln SW Albuquerque NM 88888 Farmer org. and landowners have agreed to the following terms. Landowners are the legal landowner with clear title to two plots in the South Valley of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Landowner name and farmer org. have agreed to the following terms. Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)

1. MOU is for five years upon signing. 2. Below date is the legal and effective date. 3. After five years this MOU can be renewed. 4. This MOU can be amended with 30 day written request from any participant. 5. This MOU can only be terminated by participants with 90 day written notice with a justifiable cause, as

much investment has been put into the land. 6. All benefits of land improvements will be transferred to landowner after five year period. Any structures

can be moved by farmer organization once the MOU is finished. Farmer Org: service, labor and responsibility

1. Prepare, amend and cultivate soil for crops 2. Provides one Farm manager, Fidel Gonzalez, or mutually agreed upon replacement 3. Provide well, pump, water, weed, harvest, and labor that applies to the farm 4. Maintenance of irrigation 5. Provide farm assistance with farm collaborative (additional farm labor). 6. Provide administrative assistance to oversee the farm 7. Maintain records of farm activity 8. Procure contracts and sales of farm product 9. Ensure that monthly rental for the property is paid timely and in full to the Landowner by the tenant/Farm

manager according to the signed lease agreement and that all utility fees necessary for maintenance of this farming enterprise are kept current.

Landowners responsibility 1. Provide 1/2 acre of land 2. Use of the existing electrical system to pump water 3. Allow access to the farm 4. Allow photos and information about the project to supporters and funders 5. Allow tours of site for educational, support and funding purposes

Communication, Liability, Conflict Resolution etc.

1. Farmer organization, the Farm Manager, their guests, affiliates and agents agree to indemnify and hold harmless the Landowner for any liability, damage, loss, claim, cost or expense, including reasonable attorneys’ fees, that is caused by any act or omission in connection with the use of or activities on the farm. All rights to make claims against the Landowners are hereby waived

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Memorandum of Understanding between Farmers and Landowners

© American Friends Service Committee. Do not copy any portion of this document.

2. Farmer organization assumes full responsibility/liability for all activity it conducts, including personal injury, accidents, damage to property of any kind

3. farmer organization and its agents will conduct activity with due consideration for neighbors, including the Landowners, and maintain the farm accordingly

4. farmer organization, the Farm Manager and the Landowners will meet twice annually to review the status/progress of the project and to resolve conflicts

5. Landowners reserve the right to control or deny access to individuals if conflicts arise 6. Landowners reserve the right to make changes or exceptions to rules/policies where and when appropriate 7. If warranted, all parties agree to share in hiring a professional mediator to assist in resolving conflicts.

Restrictions 1. 24 hours verbal notice to Landowner prior to tours and/or photos 2. Lock and keys handled only by the landowner and farmer organization farmer manager

5 year general farm project agreement and financial agreement

1. farmer organization is the lead organization 2. farmer organization will handle all contracts 3. farmer organization will maintain all documentation for the farm project 4. farmer organization will maintain and keep all financial records 5. farmer organization will handle all accounts including payouts. 6. farmer organization will exchange ideas, discourse, and provide an information flow between participants 7. American Friends Service Committee is a partner for the 1st three years of this project (see below).

For more information on American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) role, responsibilities and service see MOU between farmer organization and AFSC. This MOU can be provided upon request from AFSC. PRINCIPAL CONTACTS:

Name name Executive Director of Org

Name Landowners

Contact 505-555-5555 email@email.com

505-888-8888 email@email.com

Date: __________________ ________________________________ farmer org. signature ______________________________landowner signature

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Sample label for boxes of produce Note the 5 areas on each label to complete with information for delivery.

Date Salad Greens

AgriCultura Network

Box:_____ of:_____ Unit #_____

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Well permit flow chart

land  your  you    NO  

  Y  

  YES  

 

 

  YES  

     

  NO  

  YES  

 

 

  YES  

   

NO  

 

   

  YES  

PERMITTING  EXISTING  WELLS   REQUIRED  FOR:  

• Well  With  No  County  Permit  • Well  With  No  Record  of  Final  Inspection  • Change  of  Use  (I.E.  from  1  –  household  to  more  

than  one  household)  

Is  NMSEO  State  Permit  in  current  owner’s  name?  

Change  of  well  ownership  at  NMSEO  required  

When  was  well  drilled?  

After  Dec.  1987  

Is  well  shared?  

Unknown  Check  records  @  BCOEH  and  NMSEO.  Also,  land  documents  in  your  possession  

If  still  unknown  permit  well  as  after  1987  

Before  Dec.  1987  

Documentation  to  verify  well  date  

Well  Declaration  

Permit  well  as  if  after  1987  

EHCI  permit  application  required  $75  fee  

EHCM  permit  application  required  $100  fee  

 

BERNALILLO  COUNTY  OFFICE  OF  ENVIRONMENTAL  HEALTH  (BCOEH)  #505-­‐314-­‐0310  

NEW  MEXICO  STATE  ENGINEER  OFFICE  (NMSEO)  #505-­‐383-­‐4000  

land  your  you    NO  

  Y  

  YES  

 

 

  YES  

     

  NO  

  YES  

 

 

  YES  

   

NO  

 

   

  YES  

PERMITTING  EXISTING  WELLS   REQUIRED  FOR:  

• Well  With  No  County  Permit  • Well  With  No  Record  of  Final  Inspection  • Change  of  Use  (I.E.  from  1  –  household  to  more  

than  one  household)  

Is  NMSEO  State  Permit  in  current  owner’s  name?  

Change  of  well  ownership  at  NMSEO  required  

When  was  well  drilled?  

After  Dec.  1987  

Is  well  shared?  

Unknown  Check  records  @  BCOEH  and  NMSEO.  Also,  land  documents  in  your  possession  

If  still  unknown  permit  well  as  after  1987  

Before  Dec.  1987  

Documentation  to  verify  well  date  

Well  Declaration  

Permit  well  as  if  after  1987  

EHCI  permit  application  required  $75  fee  

EHCM  permit  application  required  $100  fee  

 

BERNALILLO  COUNTY  OFFICE  OF  ENVIRONMENTAL  HEALTH  (BCOEH)  #505-­‐314-­‐0310  

NEW  MEXICO  STATE  ENGINEER  OFFICE  (NMSEO)  #505-­‐383-­‐4000  

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Grower’s market proceduresSet Up:

• All growers must leave a list of the produce that they are leaving for the market.

• Vendor must collect market supplies before arriving at SVEDC. Must take the following to mar-ket: Tent, Sand bags, plastic tub with pens, signs, bags, tablecloths, and paper, 3 tables, baskets and containers and bank.

• Count out your bank to make sure that there is $100 dollars in change.

• Vendor arrives at cold storage at least 1.5 hours prior to market opening time.

• Collect inventory lists from the three participating farms.

• Load up inventory and travel to the market site.

• Arrive at market site one hour prior to opening time.

• Set up market stand with baskets, tables, and signs.

• Conduct sales (leave larger bills visible until making change, no change offered on WIC checks, always have someone watching the cash box)

Break down:

• At the end of the market you must weigh and/or count out your unsold product. Document these numbers

• Package and label with RED TAPE the carry over inventory for the following market.

• Stamp WIC checks and return wood chips.

• Return the unsold product to the SVEDC cooler.

• Return the market supplies to the storage area.

• Work out the bank*

• Report the unsold product, the return on sales, and payout to the ACN member growers.

* Working out the bank: You can use the spreadsheet provided to calculate the total estimated values and then deduct the amount of unsold product to determine the actual payout. Figure out these important factors: Estimate Sales/Actual Sales/Percentage of Return. Count back the bank with change and small bills

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Sample farmer’s market bankPRODUCT FARM ORIGIN $/UNIT QTY VALUE UNSOLD ACTREV

Arugula (lbs) $8.00 $0.00 $0.00Basil-Italian (1/2 lb bag) $4.00 $0.00 $0.00Basil-Thai (bn) $2.00 $0.00 $0.00Beans (lb) $4.00 $0.00 $0.00Beans-Purple Italian(Lbs) $4.00 $0.00 $0.00Beets-b gold(bunches/lb) LPI $3.00 7 $21.00 0 $21.00habanero $4.00 $0.00 $0.00Beets-merlin(bunches/lb) $3.00 $0.00 $0.00Carrots (lbs) 12ve/12emc $3.00 24 $72.00 7 $51.00Chard-Rainbow (bunches) VE $3.00 6 $18.00 2 $12.00Wholesale Serrano $2.00 $0.00 $0.00Chile - Big Jim (lbs) $2.00 $0.00 $0.00Chile-XX barker (lbs) $4.00 $0.00 $0.00Cucumber - Pickl (lbs) $2.00 $0.00 $0.00Cucumber - Salad (lbs) $2.00 $0.00 $0.00Cuke-Lemon $2.00 $0.00 $0.00purple bells $4.00 $0.00 $0.00Bok choy $4.00 $0.00 $0.00Peppers - Jala Hot (lbs) $6.00 $0.00 $0.00Peppers - Jala (lbs) $4.00 $0.00 $0.00Peppers – Bell, green $4.00 $0.00 $0.00Peppers-Serano (.25 lb) $6.00 $0.00 $0.00Peppers-YelwHt (.3lb/bkt) $6.00 $0.00 $0.00Radishes Easter Egg (bns) emc $2.00 10 $20.00 1 $18.00Radishes Red Rover (bns) VE $2.00 12 $24.00 10 $4.00Salad Greens (lbs) emc $8.00 1 $8.00 0.25 $6.00Squash-8Bl (lbs) $2.00 $0.00 $0.00Squash-HkNeck (lbs) $2.00 $0.00 $0.00Squash-Mexican (lbs) $2.00 $0.00 $0.00Squash-Mexican Large $4.00 $0.00 $0.00Squash-Mexican Medium $3.00 $0.00 $0.00Squash-Zucni (lbs) $2.00 $0.00 $0.00Tom - Yellow Plum (lbs) $6.00 $0.00 $0.00Tom - Valley Girl (lbs) $3.00 $0.00 $0.00Tomatoes yellow (lbs) $3.00 $0.00 $0.00Tomato - Mariana (lbs) $3.00 $0.00 $0.00Turnips (bunch) VE $3.00 16 $48.00 2 $42.00Snow peas (0.25 lb) emc $2.00 5 $10.00 0 $10.00spinach (lb) emc $8.00 0.5 $4.00 0.5 $0.00Asparagus (0.5 lb bunch) LPI $4.00 12 $48.00 0 $48.00Total Value of Produce $273.00Sales $212.00Approx. # of customers:

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BANK AMOUNT

Cash $100.00 $0.00$20.00 4 $80.00$10.00 11 $110.00$5.00 4 $20.00$1.00 41 $41.00

Receipts $15.00 1 $15.00WIC $4.00 $0.00Coins $0.00

$0.25 41 $10.25$0.10 105 $10.50$0.05 200 $10.00$0.01 $0.00

Personal Checks mkt bucks checks---> $8.00 Minus Till $100.00Actual Total $204.75% Return 0.965801887

Totals: Actual %emc $51.00 $49.26LPI $69.00 $66.64VE $75.00 $72.44

$195.00 $188.33