Enroll in the New No-Cost Program Aimed at Preserving California’s Agricultural Heritage.
Beginning farmers and ranchers in California face many challenges in sustaining their agricultural operations. This program provides no-cost mentoring services from established farmers and ranchers to facilitate knowledge transfer.
Do you meet the qualifications of a program mentor or mentee? Select the "Enroll here" button to complete an online enrollment survey. Information collected through the enrollment survey will be used to match mentors and mentees.
Key Findings
- Existing membership of the California Farm Bureau’s Young Farmers & Ranchers Program has identified a need to establish long-term connections between beginning farmers and ranchers and existing farmers and ranchers with many years of experience sustaining agricultural operations in California.
- A mentoring project, like intergenerational farming connections, will ensure knowledge transfer and assist in the long-term success of a diversity of family farms in California.
- The mentoring link is critical to facilitating real-world experiences and information sharing and further lowering the economic, market, regulatory, and other traditional barriers to entry for beginning farmers and ranchers, including those farmers that are socially disadvantaged and veterans.
Who can become a mentor?
Farmers (including specialty crop growers) and ranchers with more than a decade of experience operating a production agriculture business in California can become mentors.
Benefits of becoming a mentor:
- Get paid $50/hr. for up to 6 hours of time mentoring a beginning farmer and/or rancher (i.e. $300 per mentee).
- Share knowledge, skills, and experience to help guide the long-term success of beginning farmers and ranchers in California.
Who can become a mentee?
Farmers (including specialty crop growers) and ranchers with one to 10 years of experience operating a production agriculture business in California can become mentees.
Benefits of becoming a mentee:
- Learn from experienced farmers and ranchers through six hours of mentoring.
- Attend biannual workshops alongside subject matter experts and peers.
- Enjoy annual subscriptions to the Ag Alert® weekly newspaper and Farm Bureau Extension classes.
- Work towards self-declared goals such as adopting new management practices, scaling production and distribution, learning established and emerging marketplaces, improving business accounting and finance fundamentals, and more.
How the program works
Funding for this Project was made possible by a grant/cooperative agreement from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Marketing Service and National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the USDA.
Have questions? Contact Tyler Rood, Senior Project Specialist, at (916) 956-4266 or trood@cfbf.com.
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