Thank you for your interest in the Expanding our Roots Beginning Farmer and Rancher Mentorship Program. Please fill out this survey to enroll in the program; the enrollment survey will be used to match you with either a mentor or beginning farmer and/or rancher.
Farmers and/or ranchers with greater than 10 years of experience operating an agricultural production business in California (i.e. Mentors) are expected to provide at least 6 hours of mentorship services to a beginning farmer(s) and/or rancher(s) with 1-10 years of experience operating a production agriculture business in California (i.e. Mentees). Mentors will be paid for up to 6 hours of mentorship services per mentee at a rate of $50/hour.
The goal of the program is to facilitate practical knowledge transfer to beginning farmers (including specialty crop growers) and ranchers on topics such as, but not limited to:
- Agricultural production practices
- Post-harvest handling, storage, and distribution
- Business accounting and finance
- Marketing and sales, including emerging markets to expand customer base and income potential
- Technologies to improve production and distribution efficiencies
- Environmental, pesticide, and food safety regulations
- Conservation practices
Beginning farmers and ranchers will be provided with additional no-cost educational resources, including: educational workshops alongside subject matter experts and peers; Farm Bureau resources, such as an annual subscriptions to the AgAlert weekly newspaper and Farm Bureau Extension classes.
If you have any questions related to this enrollment application or the Mentorship program in general, then please reach out to staff.
Tyler Rood trood@cfbf.com (916) 956-4266
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.
