Agricultural Training and Education – Program services include the 195-hour Farmer Education Program (PEPA), monthly farmer workshops and field days, and technical assistance on business planning, record-keeping, production, harvest, marketing and conservation. Training and education programs primarily serve aspiring farmers and also limited-resource farmers seeking to advance their professional skills. Most participants are young adults or mid-career employees seeking professional advancement. Each year about one-third of PEPA students are women and at least 80% are low-income families. Typically 30 people enroll each year and 80% successfully graduate from the course.

PEPA Update 2011-2012: The course started in late October. Full program enrollment is filled, but students at Hartnell College may enroll for individual modules including:

Module 3: Organic Crop Planning (January 10 - February 19, 2012)
Hartnell College ABT 101 - Organic Vegetable Production
 
Module 4: Agricultural Market Planning (February 21 - April 1, 2012)
Hartnell College ABT 105 - Agriculture Marketing Opportunities and Growth for
Organic Farming
 
Module 5: Agriculture Business Planning (April 3 - May 20, 2012)
Hartnell College ABT 104 - Agriculture Business Development for New Organic Farmers
 
PEPA Graduation: Saturday, May 26, 2012 at the ALBA Rural Development Center.

Farm Business Incubators – Graduates of PEPA may enter into a First-Year Farmer Apprenticeship leading to enrollment in the Farm Business Incubator. Its services include the provision of farmland, equipment and irrigation for beginning farmers operating at various scales, ranging from one-half to eight acres. Land lease rates start with a significant subsidy that steadily decreases from years one through six. The Rural Development Center farm focuses on beginning farmer education. The Triple M Ranch serves more experienced farmers working to improve their business performance. ALBA provides hundreds of technical assistance services each year for more than 70 farmers. The organization requires an annually updated farm business plan for land-lease renewal, and also surveys farmers regarding educational development and business performance, including core competencies, total sales, wages paid and other expenses, total household income, business equity and other measures of farm business development.

ALBA Organics Produce Distribution – Produce sales that match the needs of beginning farmers, especially their scales of production, are vital for successful business development. ALBA Organics is an earned-income social venture that provides marketing education while supporting beginning farmers’ sales development. It purchases fresh, certified organic fruits and vegetables from a variety of farmers at ALBA as well as regional farmers and distributes produce to diverse and discerning customers including wholesale, retail and food service sectors. All farmer-vendors comply with a food safety and other procurement policies including quality control to assure top-quality organic produce.

Food, Land and Water: Connecting Families with Conservation – This program is a multicultural environmental science curriculum for 3rd and 4th grade students, primarily focused on the Alisal Union School District in Salinas. ALBA hosts 1000 children per year with beginning farmers’ involvement to support hands-on, science-based learning in the context of functional biodiversity on a working organic farm. Teachers, youth, and chaperones visit farmers at ALBA to learn about organic agriculture, water quality, beneficial insects, soil health, habitat, healthful foods, rural culture and career aspirations in small business.

Over the past several years, ALBA’s program accomplishments include:

• Providing the six-month Farmer Education Program to more than 300 socially disadvantaged aspiring farmers, about one-quarter of whom have started farming as a result;

• Helping farmers graduating from the farm business incubator to lease and/or purchase farmland – including three successful transitions in 2010-2011;

• Developing collaboration with El Pájaro Community Development Corporation (CDC) to lease a 30,000-square-foot food processing facility to expand ALBA Organics warehouse space while the CDC creates a Commercial Kitchen Incubator as an additional business incubator.

• Establishing a monitoring and evaluation database that generates real-time program and client performance dashboards focused on 45 program and client success indicators;

• Networking and collaborating to produce more than 95 bilingual educational workshops for beginning and limited-resource growers in the region;

• Collaborating with faith communities, private companies and non-profit organizations to create farmers’ markets and farm stands where beginning farmers can sell their produce directly to community members;

• Coordinating a food stamp incentive campaign at eight regional farmers’ markets whereby $10 of fruit and vegetable purchases are matched with a bonus $5 to purchase more fresh, local foods; and

• Sustaining 40-60% annual sales growth by the ALBA Organics produce distributor as an earned-income strategy with sales exceeding $3 million in 2011.