Jen Skoog of Family Roots Farm at Christine feeds a flock of chickens, which produce eggs for her family and her customers, in this photo from M. Schleif Photography. Submitted Photo

Farming is not an easy field for newcomers to break into. That’s true even for small operations looking to cater to a niche, a local market. In North Dakota, the nonprofit FARRMS (Foundation for Agricultural and Rural Resources Management and Sustainability) can help.

Because of the investment and expertise needed to get into agriculture, Adam Mawby of Bisbee sought assistance for his small farm to be successful.

“FARRMS was there. FARRMS put me through the Farm Beginnings program, which really helped give me an education on the business of agriculture,” said Mawby, who enrolled in the course in 2019. “They meet a couple of times a month in person. You get to actually experience and see other people’s financial books and their farm progression and learn to handle different aspects of farm setbacks.”

From webinars to farm tours, FARRMS has given him a network of people he can turn to for advice and encouragement, he said.

Mawby and his wife, Apryl, took over his family’s Gardendwellers operation and are merging it with a traditional farm they are acquiring. It brings them a little closer to their dream to move away from off-farm jobs to full-time farming.

“We are here to help those who want to try their hand at farming, to help them succeed,” said Stephanie Blumhagen, FARRMS executive director and operator of a small farm, Meadowlark Granary, near Bottineau.

“Smaller scale farmers are the ones who are attracted to our program, and in many cases, it’s a farm that’s diversifying,” she said.

An example is a traditional farm operator who wants to add pastured lamb, goats, chickens or produce eggs and garden produce for farmers markets.

Blumhagen said sustainability is at the heart of FARRMS. Its programs teach farmers to consider how their practices impact their community, natural environment and financial bottom line.

FAARMS also helps producers who want to add value through baking or preserving, creating marketable products from their production that enhance the business and extend its season beyond the harvest.

Since 2007, more than 200 students have taken FARRMS’ Farm Beginning course, which is U.S. Department of Agriculture and Farm Services Agency certified.

“We help them create a business plan for their enterprises and help them get off the ground and succeed,” Blumhagen said. “Every year we have between eight and 15 students. They are all people who want to farm sustainably.”

Jen Skoog of Christine took a Farm Beginnings course four years ago. She launched Family Roots Farm in 2017 to produce fresh and pickled vegetables, herbs, raw honey, eggs, jam, chicken, pork and lamb for direct sales to consumers at two farmers markets and through an online food cooperative.

“My dream was to grow sustainable, ethically raised food for my family and to give others the opportunity to enjoy it, too,” she said in a release from the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service in North Dakota, a major funder of FARRMS. “I would have been really lost when I started my own farm business, if it were not for FARRMS.”

A Farm Dreams course, a farming readiness study that leads into the Farm Beginnings course, also drew more than 30 people last year. Blumhagen said interest may have increased due to the course being offered online for the first time, but the enrollment also shows the extent of interest in everything from mushroom, microgreens and medicinal herbs to all types of livestock.

Most enrollees were from North Dakota but a few were from Minnesota and one was an Illinois physician who works with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s patients and wants to start a therapy farm for the geriatric population in North Dakota in his retirement.

“Interest in local foods has been growing for the past decade but COVID definitely caused a surge,” Blumhagen said. Seeing grocery store shelves emptied by panic buying and the breakdown in traditional food supply chains, people made a psychological shift regarding their food, she said.

“There are increased opportunities for people who want to grow local food,” Blumhagen said. “We don’t have enough farmers producing to meet the demand.”

In addition to educating farmers of the future, FARRMS provides internships, workshops, tours, mentors, webinars and microloans with funding from government agencies and private foundations and donors. The organization has awarded 62 grants and loans totaling nearly $479,000 to farmers. It has placed more than 60 interns on farms or at farmers markets since 2016.

Marvin Baker, a graduate of an early Farm Beginnings course and owner of North Star Farms at Carpio, has hosted several FAARMS interns. One intern, stationed at Minot Air Force Base, went on to purchase a farm in South Carolina, where he and his wife have an operation similar to North Star Farms.

“It’s kind of refreshing to see that,” Baker said.

Baker said one of the greatest benefits of FARRMS is the educational component through networking with other farmers and utilizing FARRMS’ resources.

The Mawbys acknowledge those benefits, too.

“There’s just so much out there in order to make a farm a full-time living that it really does pay off having other people, and organizations especially, that help advocate and help show you what to do and where to go,” Adam Mawby said.

Apryl Mawby said it is worth taking time out of her busy schedule to teach an intern.

“For most of us host farmers, we want to expand local foods and encourage young people to become farmers. So that’s where it stems from – just our love of agriculture and wanting to share that with others,” she said.

She said their current intern, an aquaponics student at Dakota College at Bottineau, has taken an interest in horticulture due to his exposure to garden production and high tunnels. The Mawbys’ farm is not just vegetables but pastured chickens and lambs, culinary herbs and medicinal herbs.

Adam Mawby also mentored this year an individual from Spirit Lake Nation, who was looking to start a livestock operation.

“It’s really about sharing our knowledge, our experiences. Not one person or family can grasp the full scope of everything you truly need. We are trying to run a business that has commercial standards, Department of Health and Department of Agriculture rules to follow,” he said.

The Mawbys hope to eventually make agri-tourism a part of their business model, but they also want to share their knowledge to support others seeking to start small farms.

“You need somebody else doing it just to be able to service an area. Otherwise we’re traveling so far, and so much money is lost in the distribution of products,” Adam Mawby said. “The more people we can get doing it, even if they’re small scale, it makes a big difference.”