2017 ASHS Annual Conference

The "Ultra-Niche Crops for the Progressive New Farmer" is a USDA-NIFA grant funded project currently underway at Rutgers University. This project seeks to teach new and beginning farmers about the cultivation, marketing, and business management of 10 "ultra-niche" horticultural crops - those of exceptionally high value that can be grown successfully on 10 acres or less. Teaching methodologies for this multi-year project include face-to-face traditional Extension workshops along with streaming video of the live presentations to two other remote sites across the state. A grower advisory council selected the crops and assists in evaluating the programming outputs. Reviews from the first four (4) sessions on strawberries, cut flowers, winter lettuce, and specialty peppers have been very positive from both the live audiences and remote sites. A major highlight and undertaking of this training is the grower virtual field trips, which were video broadcast to all three sites on the evening of the training, and then archived online along with the session training materials and resources. The virtual field trips are 20-minute videos that include an expert farmer, a wholesaler or consumer marketer or buyer, and a subject matter expert for the crop. Attendees are able to virtually visit the farm in season, see how the crop is grown, learn what buyers look for, and hear from an expert about specific difficulties a crop may pose. Presenters for each workshop are those showcased in the videos, giving the audience members an opportunity to engage with the speakers in person and from the remote sites. Evaluations from the first four sessions (n=182) revealed that 69.6% of the respondents were not currently farming the crop while following the workshop, 52.38% of those were undecided. Evaluation data also revealed that attendees planned to attend future workshops in the series (88.07%), view the virtual field trip (70%), crop profiles and/or budgets (83.33%), and business management videos (74.03%); and that 76.83% were farming only 0 – 10 years. At the completion of the project, all educational materials developed about the 10 ultra-niche crops will be available on-line. In addition to the virtual field trips for each crop, the website and training sessions also include enterprise budgets for each crop; short segments on the components of a farm business plan; crop profiles - including on-line interactive enterprise budgets; Feasibility Analysis worksheets, including a SWOT analysis template; and a food safety compliance worksheet. The educational materials and project details are at http://njaes.rutgers.edu/ultra-niche-crops/.