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ALBA’s Education and Training Programs

ALBA’s Education and Training Programs. Watsonville- Farmer Training and Research Center Salinas- Rural Development Center. History:.

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ALBA’s Education and Training Programs

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  1. ALBA’s Education and Training Programs Watsonville- Farmer Training and Research Center Salinas- Rural Development Center

  2. History: Originally founded as a project under a D.C. non-profit (Association for Community Based Education) in 1985, we cooperatively worked with a multidimensional focus of education, production, and marketing.

  3. Facilities: Through the investment of multiple local and national partners, our infrastructure to conduct training programs grew 4 fold in the past year with the addition these buildings. Warehouse and Cooler Straw bale Resource Center and Computer Library Maintenance Shop

  4. Program Educativo para Pequeños Agricultores (PEPA) Drip tape/ bed shaper The 21 strong class of 2003 Crop diversity and hedgerows

  5. Statistics in Agriculture • The number of farmers in California under the age of 35 decreased by 51% during the 1990s. • Latino farmers have increased by 55% over the past decade. • Many beginning farmers are minorities. • In Monterey, Santa Cruz, and San Benito Counties, the number of limited-resource farmers is significant (56%, 70% and 79% respectively). • Smaller and diversified farms reduce risk through direct marketing. • Restrictions on common chemicals and increasing prices for inputs have reduced profit margins.

  6. New Farmer Profile • Are small in scale • Have experience as field workers. • Are aware of pesticide risks and tight margins in conventional agriculture. • Seek greater independence in work. • Immigrants bring a strong ecological sense of interconnections in crop production. • Cultivate local sense of food security with specialty crops and high-demand vegetables. • Increasingly find success in organic markets.

  7. Seeking balance in production: If you wouldn't let your kids play here, are those beets something worth eating? Healthy crops come from healthy soils

  8. Focus on Sustainability: Direct-to-consumer retail Organic production methods Alternative energy sources

  9. Looking to the Future: • Need favorable land tenure systems. • Need consistent training and education in production. • Minorities can advance their businesses with start-up opportunities, loans, and capital. • Small farmers contribute to local economy through employment of local labor. • Need language-appropriate technical materials. • Empowerment through training is transferable to other sectors besides agriculture. • Must develop bookkeeping and math skills.

  10. Partners in collaboration: AWQA, EFA, RCDs, Hartnell Community College, CCRC&D, CSUMB, NRCS, ATTRA, Farmlink, UCSC, and the Elkhorn Slough Foundation

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