Getting a head start: FarmStart offers training for new Northern farmers.

• Author: Kelly, Lindsay
• Position: TRAINING & EDUCATION

FarmStart wants to get more new and young farmers into the North, and a pilot project is using training, peer mentorship and marketing to get them here.

Based in Guelph, FarmStart provides guidance to meet challenges in the agricultural industry, working primarily with new Canadians, young people from non-farming backgrounds, and second career farmers.

Allison Muckle, the owner of Rowantree Farms just outside of Sudbury, has been hired as the local co-ordinator for the Northern Ontario arm of FarmStart, which is now more than halfway into a two-and-a-half-year pilot project to test the organization's principles in the North.

A recent provincial survey shows distinct differences in the challenges faced by farmers in southern Ontario and their Northern Ontario counterparts. For those in the south, it's access to land and finances, whereas in the North it's access to training and resources.

"But I think the main challenges for new farmers are finding land, being able to afford that land, and whatever capital purchases you need to start up your farm," Muckle said. "And then beyond that, it's where do you get that knowledge? Business knowledge as well as actual production knowledge."

In the past, she noted, farms were passed down through generations of families, and young producers inherited the farms--as well as the knowledge required to operate them successfully--from their parents. But as young farmers have watched their parents struggle in the industry, agriculture is becoming a less attractive career option and fewer are following in those footsteps.

"Maybe these (producers) are young people who didn't grow up on a farm, and there's a real problem, because where do they get that knowledge that might have been passed down through the family?" Muckle said. "If you didn't grow up on a farm, then you've missed a lot of that knowledge."

FarmStart aims to mitigate the growing pains by offering guidance in a number of ways, including workshops that train farmers in production skills and business management.

One workshop, Exploring Your New Farm Dream, is a four-day course that gets potential producers to consider the realities of farming before they enter the industry; at its end, participants will be able to answer the question 'Is a farming career right for me?'

"It gets people thinking about a lot of things they need to be thinking...