USDA Announces START2FARM.GOV to Support America's Future Farming Generations(1)
Beginning farmers and ranchers will benefit from assistance provided by new website.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and USDA's National Agricultural Library, in partnership with the American Farm Bureau Federation, announced Start2farm.gov, a new online portal that helps provide assistance for beginning farmers and ranchers. The portal includes links to training, financing, technical assistance and other support services specifically for beginning farmers and ranchers as well as successful case studies about new and beginning farmers and ranchers.
"America's farmers and rural communities are vitally important to our nation's economy, producing the food, feed, fiber and fuel that continue to help us grow," said Secretary Vilsack. "USDA is working to provide opportunities for the next generation to get into agriculture in order to continue the record success of America's farmers and ranchers who are seeing record farm incomes and record exports. Start2Farm.gov will help us protect and sustain these successes, so that we continue to build an agriculture industry diverse and successful enough to attract the smartest, hardest-working young people in the nation."
Start2Farm.gov was funded via the NIFA Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program, the program that funded the development of education, training, outreach and mentoring programs to enhance the sustainability of the next generation of America's farmers and ranchers. The Program has been funded since fiscal year 2009. It was authorized in the 2008 Farm Bill with $75 million through FY12. In the first year of NIFA's Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program, three-year grants supported training for 5,000 beginning farmers and ranchers. In 2011, it is anticipated that these grants will have supported training for more than 10,000 beginning farmer and ranchers.
The BFRDP legislation requires the Secretary to establish an online clearinghouse that makes available to beginning farmers or ranchers supporting education curricula and training materials and programs. This clearinghouse, Start2Farm.gov, allows potential and beginning farmers to search for programs and resources that will help them find training, financing, technical assistance, and support networks. Additional features include a 'Thinking about farming?' tutorial and an event calendar. Start2farm.gov also showcases stories of how other BFRDP grantees have started, and stayed in, farming and ranching.
