Posts by Nicole Waters
Two farms’ stories of building new skill sets while also building community. The Smart Farming Team initiative has become one of the most impactful elements of the Labor Ready Project. Offering farm business owners the time and space necessary to address specific challenges facing their farm businesses, New York State producers worked in teams to build critical…
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Our Labor Ready project seeks to enhance the efficiency and overall success of NYS fruit and vegetable farm businesses through professional development for Ag managers, with a special emphasis on creating opportunities for growth and career development for aspiring Latinx farm employees. In a new video series, we highlight the experience of two NYS farmers…
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Do you struggle with getting all the work done on your farm? Do you have challenges attracting and retaining employees? Are you interested in working with other farmers to design solutions to labor challenges? If so, consider attending our farmer focus group, “Exploring Novel Approaches to Farm Labor,” to be held via Zoom (online), on…
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Two Perspectives on the Benefit of Agricultural Labor and Farm Business Consulting The Cornell Small Farms Program has nearly 20 years of experience supporting New York State farmers in their agricultural business pursuits from small-scale startup to long-term farming success. Throughout the years, our team has become increasingly aware of the importance of on-farm leadership,…
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Management skills are not something people are born with, but are learned with time and practice. With labor as one of the largest on-farm costs, it is wise to invest in people and improve your management skills. Are you managing your labor well? Our Labor Ready project works to ensure that new farmers and advancing…
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Managing people is a skill that can be learned, much like operating equipment or growing crops. Do you expect yourself, or your employees, to learn those other skills on your own? Most people are not born with people management skills and benefit from coaching. Labor is one of your farm’s biggest expenses — how well…
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It was a sunny and gorgeous Saturday afternoon on July 13 for the 5th annual CCE Lake Ontario Fruit Program’s Hispanic Summer Fruit Tour successfully conducted in partnership with the Cornell Small Farms Program. The beautiful weather added to the high turnout, but in truth, Mario Miranda Sazo is the reason more than one hundred…
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The first three months of 2019 have been a whirlwind of activity for the Labor Ready Project. In this retrospect, Nicole Waters shares how the project’s recent trainings supported both advanced beginning farmers and farm managers in business and management skills. The accumulation of months of outreach and preparation came to fruition during March for…
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