Providing critical support for a profitable and sustainable farmer workforce
The Tipper-Gurley Grow-a-Farmer Fund benefits the Beginner Farmer Training Program’s (BFTP) mission: To BUILD A NEW FARMER WORKFORCE WELL-TRAINED IN PRACTICES THAT ARE profitable, protect our land and water, and provide fresh, healthy food for our region’s communities .
Since the BFTP launched in 2009, Future Harvest has trained more than 400 new farmers across the Chesapeake region in sustainable and regenerative practices. The BFTP provides a full year of FREE training to new farmers, ensuring that no farmer is ever turned away for lack of funds. We distribute thousands of dollars directly to limited-resource farmers each year in the form of needs-based, farm start-up mini-grants.
The Tipper-Gurley Fund Grow-a-Farmer Fund, named after the BFTP’s co-founders Cathy Tipper and Jack and Beckie Gurley (Calvert’s Gift Farm), supports our work to provide free access to critical training for our region’s future farmers.
Why make a donation?
Your donation directly supports BFTP graduates as they start their farms. Trainees often come to us looking to apply to grants for start-up costs for their new farm businesses. In our experience, these grants typically do not exist. While we support trainees applying for financing through traditional and non-traditional agricultural lending agencies, we also recognize the need for additional support for historically underserved farmers. By offering start-up grants through the Grow-a-Farmer Fund, we can work to change this historic inequity and work toward building a more just and sustainable food system.
BFTP graduates from 2025 onward will be able to apply to the Grow-a-Farmer Fund to fund start-up costs for their new farms. This means that your gift will go directly toward helping new farmers start producing more food – your tax-deductible donation is an investment in the health of our planet and our communities.
The BFTP has been extremely successful at reaching and training majority farmers of color and women farmers. From 2022-2024, 53% of Trainees identified as BIPOC and 62% as female. These passionate, aspiring farmers are eager to learn sustainable ways to keep our water and air clean, soils fertile, communities healthy, farmland safe from development, and our local food system resilient. You can learn more about some of our 400 BFTP graduates who have gone on to start small farm businesses here. Their profiles are truly inspiring!
No gift is too small! The time is now! Together, we can continue our work to ensure that we have a sustainable, regional food system and a farmer workforce that is ready and able to feed our communities!
A letter from our Executive Director, Grace Leatherman
Dear Friends,
One of the things that drew me to Future Harvest was the Beginner Farmer Training Program (BFTP.) When I was choosing a career path, it honestly never occurred to me that farming was a viable option, even though I had grown up on a farm. The BFTP is a groundbreaking program that provides peer-to-peer mentorship and technical assistance to those who want to become sustainable farmers. New farmers get hands-on experience in the field while also developing the fundamental business skills that will help their farms thrive. One of the most joyful parts of my job is visiting farms owned by BFTP graduates. They are truly changing the way we grow food in the Chesapeake region.
When the Beginner Farmer Training program was founded by Future Harvest leaders like Cathy Tipper and Jack and Becky Gurley, it was a small program that emphasized the building of community. That focus is still at the heart of BFTP. Sustainable farming can be hard and isolating, and we need to build relationships in order to learn and grow. In response to years of experience and farmer feedback, we are making some changes to the BFTP in order to emphasize community and in-depth learning. We will no longer have levels within the program, because we know that farmers have different needs at different moments in their careers. Our field days and online courses will be open to everyone who wants to explore farming, and we will expand our Choose Your Own Consultant program to better serve more advanced farmers. In the spirit of the original Tipper-Gurley Fund, we will provide intensive support and training for a cohort of new farmers who are already working and or volunteering on farms in the Baltimore/Washington DC metropolitan area. This focus on farm workers ensures that those who have already committed their careers to agriculture are able to advance into farm management or ownership.
Sustainable farmers are critical to the community, economy, and the environment of the Chesapeake region. We rely on Future Harvest farmers to provide healthy food for our kids and to improve soil, protect water quality, and increase biodiversity. We need new sustainable farmers, and we need your help in supporting them. Please consider a donation to the Tipper-Gurley Grow-a-Farmer Fund. Your support will directly fund mini-grants for BFTP participants and graduates who are starting their own farms. Farmers need community and we thank you for being a part of ours.
With gratitude,
Grace Leatherman
Executive Director