Steve Streets, a self-employed carpenter in Moscow surveys his newly purchased, five-acre parcel with its neglected orchard and pasture, broken fences, and sagging rooflines and sees the thriving, small family farm it once was and will be again. “Location, location, location,” he says, referring to Moscow’s busy aquatics center directly across the street.

Left: Successful small-acreage entrepreneurs Diane Green and Thom Sadoski operate Greentree Naturals, a certified organic farm near Sandpoint, Idaho.

Streets plans a U-pick strawberry operation, fertilized by rare Dominique chickens that will lay farm-fresh eggs, and a U-pick pumpkin patch. Married to a Washington State University history professor and with two children, aged 9 and 14, Streets, who grew up on a diversified farm in West Virginia, has no illusions about striking it rich, “It’s the classic have a farm but have an off-farm income.”

What appeals to Streets is the independence of farming and being home for his children after school. “It’s going to enhance our life and it’s going to enhance the community,” says Streets.

A new program for small-acreage farmers and ranchers is for people like Streets. Cultivating Success is developing cooperatively at the University of Idaho and WSU with funding from the United States Department of Agriculture and the Kellogg Foundation. With few exceptions, such as the University of California’s Small-Farm Program, “this group has not been served by the academic institutions,” said Theresa Beaver, coordinator of the new program.

Workshops and conferences offered through the universities’ Extension programs have gone partway toward filling their needs, says Colette DePhelps Brown, executive director of Rural Roots, an organization supporting community-based food systems in the Northwest and a sponsor of Cultivating Success. “But people also needed more information and a hands-on opportunity to learn.”

So far, two semester-long classes have been piloted that students can take for academic credit through either WSU or UI or for continuing education credit.

The first, a small farm overview, drew 22 students in fall 2001. That class builds on the popular Extension workshops Vickie Parker-Clark developed for small-acreage growers when she was Extension educator in Kootenai County. Students take field trips to successful small farms, and farmers come to class to talk about their experiences with variety of issues.

In the second class, Agricultural Entrepreneurship, students delve into every aspect of business planning and write full-blown business plans for their enterprises.

Jeff Bloomsburg (soil science ’85), a Worley, Idaho, farmer, was one of 19 students enrolled in spring 2002. Bloomsburg shrank his farm from 1,500 acres to 480 when wheat prices plummeted in the late 1990s. He took a part-time job as Worley’s maintenance man, dropped almost all his commodity crops, and focuses increasingly on direct-to-consumer sales of hay, straw, and natural-fed beef.

Bloomsburg says with decreased expenses for the smaller acreage his net return is “actually higher” than before. “Lately, it’s an acceptable amount of money to live on,” says Bloomsburg of his combined on- and off-farm incomes. Because of the class, he is looking at incorporating his farm, and he says he’s doing a better job of communicating about the business with his wife, who stays at home with the couple’s three children.

Christine Nauman took Agricultural Entrepreneurship this past spring when she was finishing up her UI master’s degree in forest resources and developing her own native plants nursery, Cricket’s Garden. Nauman signed up because even though she demonstrated in her master’s research that she has a knack for growing native plants from seed, she had “no clue about business.”

Other students are developing businesses in cut flowers, certified organic eggs, beef cattle, community supported agriculture, organic wine grapes, horse boarding and training, weed-free hay, hard cider, and horse-drawn sleigh rides, among others.

Students who complete the two classes are eligible for an on-farm apprenticeship. Farmer mentors receive training and certification from the Cultivating Success program then work one-on-one with students on their farms.

Diane Green, one of the program’s first certified farmer mentors, has been overseeing informal apprenticeships at Greentree Naturals—her successful organic market garden near Sandpoint—for five years. “How I learn best is hands-on,” says Green. “I want to talk to the person, or be involved with the person, who’s actually on the ground doing the process.”

Apprentices at Green’s farm learn how she and husband, Thom Sadoski, support themselves by growing and marketing unusual, high-quality produce and flowers from their 2 1/2 acres of land currently in production. “More than anything, I think we need to be cultivating future farmers because we’re losing farms at a devastating rate, and I think small farms are going to be the future,” says Green.

With the numbers of small farms growing, demand is strong for education in small-acreage production systems. “I can see that by the number of people from all over the region who call me and ask me to teach marketing classes,” says Green.

Cultivating Success organizers hope to add an introductory and advanced course on sustainable food systems to the curriculum, both being developed at WSU by crop and soil science instructor Cathy Perillo. They also hope to offer the package of five courses as a certificate program.

Eventually, the plan is to make the program available in communities in Idaho and Washington via distance education. According to Cinda Williams, a developer of Cultivating Success at UI, local instructors would offer a common curriculum and the Internet would connect far-flung participants in chat groups.

© 2002 University of Idaho, College of Agricultural and Life Sciences.