More than 100 rural Idahoans may be able to improve their economic status and stay on their farms and ranches through assistance from the Alternative Careers for Idaho Farmers (ACIF) program. The two-year program is supported by a federal grant to the University of Idaho from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Workforce Investment Act.

Nance Ceccarelli, ACIF program manager, says Idaho’s program is unique. Secured by Idaho’s congressional delegation headed by Senator Larry Craig, the program is intended to improve the ability of dislocated farmers and ranchers to earn a reasonable living. About $300,000 was obligated in January 2002 to ACIF enrollees with realistic training plans who completed the extensive filing process.

“These are not direct payments to the individual,” Ceccarelli explained. “Funding is institution to institution.”

An additional $700,000 in transitional support services will be dispersed during the remaining 18 months of the grant.

“This is not just another farm program that is throwing money at the problem,” said Tom Stroschein, one of the program coordinators.

Initially, when funding for the program was forthcoming, “A lot of people hadn’t heard about it,” Stroschein said. That all has changed in the past six months.

Going into summer 2002, Ceccarelli said more than 240 individuals had applied for assistance and approximately $450,000 in grants were awarded to about 65 farmer/rancher families.

This program may be the answer for some farm and ranch families who are so severely affected by low commodity prices that they must consider other careers or adopt costsaving agricultural practices, according to the ACIF program’s information material.

“It’s not the end of the road but the beginning of a new one,” said Brad Jahn, also a program coordinator. “ACIF is a chance to draw upon a person’s experiences and education to start a new job or new career.”

“I see the benefits of this program reaching far beyond financial,” Stroschein agreed. “This is an opportunity for farmers to reassess their positions in life.”

In one-on-one, often face-to-face interviews, ACIF staff members create individualized training programs for members of farm and ranch families designed to allow them to continue operations and sustain a rural lifestyle or to transition to new careers. “We’re going to work with them to be successful,” Ceccarelli said. Education, healthcare, and commercial truck driving are the three largest areas of applicant career interests.

More education could allow members of farm families to teach math, science, and special education in Idaho’s schools. LPNs (licensed practical nurses) who seek the elevated status of registered nurse or simply brush up on their skills are in high demand. Also, some farmers have skills that, with minimal certification training, will qualify them for immediate jobs.

“ACIF is the only program that is available to farmers who are dislocated,” commented Stroschein. “We see this as a national pilot. For the self-employed, dislocated farmer, this is the only thing available.”

The options for retraining and continuing education available are varied. A young couple that has a beet/sheep/potato farm has applied for ACIF funds to learn skills to start a home-based upholstery business, Ceccarelli said.

Ceccarelli added that if the ACIF program is not the right fit, individuals are referred to other agencies where help may be available. “We will help, support, guide, and assist,” she said. “Individuals are ultimately responsible for their own welfare.”

Documented achievements may enable this pilot to expand within Idaho and perhaps to other communities in rural America. With about $1 million available for assistance in Idaho, needs exceed available training funds. To substantiate this, Ceccarelli said among the 168 applicants as of January 2002, almost $3 million in training needs were identified.

An application to extend and continue the ACIF program beyond June 2003 will be considered in Congressional circles this winter.

A review board met for the first time in December 2001 to establish selection criteria and again this spring to award individual training accounts. “If someone is not funded the first go-around, we’ll work with them to develop a better plan next time,” Ceccarelli said.

“The reality is we can’t fix everything,” she added. “We can help build support bridges for individuals if they have the drive to improve themselves.”

For more information about ACIF call 208-885- 9707, email acif@uidaho.edu, or visit the web site: http://www.ag.uidaho.edu/acif

Bragg Family Starts Over, Thanks to ACIF

“We never think we are going back to college.” But 23 years after first meeting at the University of Idaho, Jeff and Sandy Bragg are walking the hallways of the Agricultural Sciences Building again.

The Alternative Careers for Idaho Farmers program came along at just the right time for the Bragg family. The financial realities of low prices and high input costs despite superb quality forced this third generation farm family to leave a 1,000-acre potato farm near Jerome and try two seasons managing a farm in the Stockton area of California.

Only one semester shy of a UI degree, Jeff Bragg decided to return to the classroom and relocate his family to Moscow. Having heard about the ACIF program while vice president of the education and research committee for the Potato Growers of Idaho, he visited the ACIF web site. Coincidentally—two days before the search closing date—Jeff saw on the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences web site the job Sandy held when they met was vacant.

Sandy successfully applied and returned to UI as an office assistant in the Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology. Jeff, thanks to funding from the ACIF program, began taking 18 spring semester credits. He graduated in May with a B.S. degree in general studies and will begin an accelerated master’s degree program this summer in agricultural and extension education.

“You have to learn to humble yourself when you are making a change,” Sandy said. The Bragg family is hard working and resourceful. Middle daughter Heidi, 19, is a first-year UI student working for J D Wulfhorst, an Ag Econ assistant professor, and youngest daughter Sarah, 16, typed after classes at Moscow High School for Ag Econ professor Stephen Devadoss. Oldest daughter Danielle, 21, will return to UI this fall.

The Braggs are doers. Jeff was involved in many grower organizations after leaving the UI campus in 1981. He consulted with farmers until the family tradition pulled him back to the land in 1989 and into ownership in 1992.

The Braggs fought off the late blight epidemic in the late 1990s, filled their two storage cellars with 120,000 sacks of fresh-pack russets, sold Ranger and Burbank russets right out of the field, and discovered the correct storage formula to hold the superior french fry quality of Shepody potatoes.

“We’ve been on a rollercoaster for the past three or four years,” Jeff admits. “I feel no bitterness, though. I know down deep we always did our very best. Actually, our best crops were the last few years.”

The Braggs are optimists. They see education will answer a calling—“we feel the need to help people,” Jeff says. Having attained one UI degree and earning a master’s, coupled with life and farm experiences, the elder Bragg intends to give back in a future education or extension setting.

Their dream of returning to the land to again grow Russet Burbanks that have a quality characteristic unlike any of the russet variety proteges may one day be realized. “Jeff’s always been a major spud head,” Sandy admits.

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