About Northeast New Farmers

What do Northeast new farmers need?

Northeast new farmers face barriers in four major areas:

Access to training, education, and technical assistance
Access to land
Access to capital and credit
Access to markets

In addition, they often experience inadequate support from family, community, farmer and service networks, which impacts the other four areas.

Northeast new farmers need programs and services that enable them to acquire the information and resources they need to succeed. They need a responsive "service infrastructure" -- from production and legal consultants, equipment, feed and seed dealers, and lenders, to trade organizations and publications. They prefer to receive services in a wide variety of formats and venues. They need policies that provide opportunities and remove barriers. They need support, advice and encouragement.

From an investigation of programs and services for new farmers in the Northeast, collaborating organizations* learned that there are a variety of programs that are relevant to new farmers, but few that are targeted to the needs of new farmers. They concluded that not nearly enough attention and resources are directed to this diverse population.

GNF is grateful to this Sponsor for its support. Click the logo to find out more about how this Sponsor supports new farmers.