Senior Farm and Ranch Broadcaster Ron Hays is talking with OSU’s Dr. Josh Campbell about the $739,432 Beginning Farmers and Ranchers Development Project Grant that OSU received from the USDA on October 9, 2024. Campbell will be the project director for the $719,432 project authorized by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA).
The portion that OSU was granted was part of USDA’s $46 million investment in projects supporting America’s veteran, underserved, and beginning farmers and ranchers to help aspiring producers enter the business and improve their skills and knowledge to sustain their operations for years to come.
The funds were given in support of OSU’s Beginning Farmer and Rancher programs proposed by Campbell. Aligning with USDA’s mission and in partnership with CoBank and farm credit Organizations, OSU’s Beginning Farmer and Rancher program is designed to aid and support producers early in their agriculture careers by providing financial, educational and technical assistance. The program is designed to encourage those desiring to be involved in agriculture but have limited access to capital or resources.
“As we look at the state of agriculture across the nation, we know that our producers are an aging population, so it is critical that we continue to invest in building up a pipeline of new producers who will carry on the mantel of our nation’s food system,” Campbell stated.
There are a lot of challenges for beginning producers, so the program that Campbell heads hopes to help support and establish those new producers to be successful in their efforts to feed the world.
The funding received from USDA is to be a three-year project that will allow OSU to establish a digital footprint, conduct educational webinars, engage with new and beginning farmers within the state through experiential education programs, and strategically invest in their successful futures.
While USDA doesn’t have a singular definition of a beginning farmer and no age classification, Campbell explained that it has more to do with the length of time an individual has been trying to produce an agricultural product.
“Typically, it is a person who has been an active producer, farmer, or rancher for less than ten years, and generally has no more than five years of schedule F on their taxes,” he said. “It can be a young person in their twenties, or a person who has retired from a career, and is getting into farming or ranching for the first time.”
Campbell hopes to provide for a gamut of opportunities from specialty crop production to livestock operations. “One of the core purposes of this program is to help beginning producers mitigate some of the risks they may encounter,” he explained. “A lot of that is going to be financial. I think a lot of beginning producers don’t fully understand the resources and services available to them, such as beginning farmer loan programs through FSA and ag creditors and things like that. So, helping people become familiar with those opportunities and help guide them through the process of accessing those resources is important.”
Campbell admitted that his three-year goal for the program is ambitious, but he hopes that what the USDA’s grant allows him to start will become sustainable well beyond that time frame. Within three years, he is planning to produce a slate of educational programs, developing fact sheets, recording webinars to be housed on YouTube and the Beginning Farmers and Ranchers webpage, and develop mentoring and experiential apprenticeship opportunities.
OSU is already in possession of a great wealth of digital resources through archives of videos, fact sheets, and the televised SUNUP program that airs every weekend. He hopes that the Beginning Farmers and Ranchers project will add to the array of resources to benefit producers. The new Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program website has already been launched and the new resources will be cataloged there as they become available. The website includes an email signup list which will keep those interested up to date with the project’s development.
