Farm Commons

Farmer Education: In 2023 we hosted about 60 farmers through our Discovering Resilience workshop, which saw 90% of attendees adopt at least one of the 10 best practices of legal resilience within 3 months of the workshop. In addition, 80% of attendees are still working towards implementing 4 or more best practices 3 months after the workshop. We launched 5 new Advanced Farm Law workshops. We wrote and distributed 10 additional guides including in-depth material on farm leasing, sales, risk management, and value-added products for farm businesses. We delivered 27 webinars to farmers nationwide on essential farm law subjects. We brought 12 Fellows through our advanced training and communications programs. We supported the leadership of 4 farmers in hosting Resilience Circles in their own communities. In addition, we addressed dozens of individual questions and re-developed our online Q&A platform, creating a community-wide discussion on farm law issues that affect farmers the most including forming LLCs, writing leases, and managing employment law obligations.

Research: Farm Commons provides essential services in doing complex legal research and in studying the impact and ramifications of legal realities on diverse farm communities. In 2023, we retooled the program to also provide legal services to select individuals, as serves our research mission. No revenue or expenses were incurred by the end of the fiscal year.

Non-Farmer Education: In 2023, Farm Commons developed its service to Extension Educators, nonprofit employees, and farm support persons nationwide to help farmers recognize and address legal vulnerabilities before a problem occurs. We supported 35 organizations with customized access to our resources and individualized webinars to their agricultural communities. We delivered our comprehensive online workshop, Guiding Resilience, to 19 professionals nationwide. Our data show that for every one non-farming agriculture professional we reach, that person provides our information to 22 more farmers in their local community, significantly magnifying our ability to achieve our mission. Considering the incredible impact and further potential of these partners to help us reach each farmer in America, we designed a new Legal Ecosystem Fellowship program that trains these partners to be able to lead farm law workshops in their own communities. 8 professionals went through the LEF program and successfully delivered farm law presentations in their communities.