About our work... | 
Well-trained farmers are key to building sustainable local food systems, and New Entry prepares new and beginning farmers for success through comprehensive training and technical assistance in all aspects of farm production and management.
Our mission is to assist multi-cultural individuals with agricultural backgrounds to successfully enter farming in Massachusetts. The broader goals of New Entry are to support the vitality and sustainability of the region's agriculture, to build long term economic self-reliance and food security among participants and their communities, and to expand access to high-quality, culturally appropriate and locally-grown foods.
To learn more, please visit our website at www.nesfp.org.
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New Entry learning opportunities | Explore Farming! Next class: March 2, 4-6pm Do you want to farm, but you're not sure if starting a commercial farm business is right for you? This free workshop will help you decide. You will learn about: - Small-scale commercial farming opportunities in New England
- Strategies that make successful farms and farmers
- How the New Entry program can help new farmers
 Explore Farming! workshops take place at the downtown Lowell office. Please call New Entry at 978-654-6745, or e-mail Sam at sanderson@comteam.org to register. Click here to learn more!
Farm Business Planning Course - Next Session begins October 2011
Applications are being accepted for the next session of the Farm Business Planning Course in October 2011. Classes will meet on Tuesday evenings from 6-9 pm in downtown Lowell. To register, please contact Sam at sanderson@comteam.org.
This 6-week course is offered twice every year, in October and January. The course fee is $250, but applicants may be eligible for a tuition waiver of up to $200 based on financial need. The course covers:
* Business plan and budget development
* Identification of market demand
* Crop planning
* Promotion of farm products
* Evaluation of the materials, equipment, and additional resources needed to run a successful farming business
You can learn more about the Farm Business Planning course here.
Online Farm Business Planning Course - Spring 2011
If you are interested in joining our mailing list to receive information on our interactive online farm business planning course, contact McKenzie Boekholder at mboekholder@comteam.org
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Join us in supporting new farmers! | Donate now! Be a part of the sustainable food revolution! Help us cultivate and sustain the next generation of farmers who will care for our farmland, supply our markets, provide food to our schools, and contribute to a vibrant local economy in our communities. As we expand our work, we invite you to join in our mission.
Your tax-deductible donation is accepted on-line through:
Tufts University's Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy - designate the Friedman School, and New Entry Sustainable Farming Project to be sure your gift supports new farmers. And THANKS!
Volunteer!
We frequently host volunteer groups on our farm. We have hosted up to 100 volunteers and engaged schools, corporate programs and community groups. To learn more, contact nesfp@tufts.edu. |
Join our mailing list... | 
Want to choose which information you receive from us? Click on the "Update Profile" button on the bottom of your email and select areas such as livestock, business planning, farm employment, land matching, CSA, and more! |
New Entry's Offices Are Moving! | New Entry will move its offices on March 15th, 2011, as part of a consolidation effort with our fiscal sponsor, Community Teamwork, Inc. New Entry will join together with other CTI programs to share space at our new home located on 155 Merrimack Street, 3rd Floor, Lowell, MA. This consolidation ultimately allows us to offer better services to our clients, as we enjoy cross-pollination with the many programs and services which CTI offers. The new office is about 5 minutes walk from our existing office. We look forward to meeting our clients in our new space, beginning March 15th! |
We welcome your feedback! | Please write to nesfp@tufts.edu with any feedback you would like to share to help us improve our newsletter. |
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| February 2011 | | Dear Friends,  It's the beginning of another year, and while here in New England we've had our fair share of snow (to put it lightly), we're already gearing up for another growing season. Here at New Entry, that means registration is well under way for our World PEAS CSA shares, workshops are being scheduled for the year ahead, and the winter Farm Business Planning Course is wrapping up. In fact, on March 31 we will be celebrating the accomplishments of our newest class of Farm Business Planning graduates. Scott Soares, the Massachusetts Commissioner of Agriculture, will be the guest of honor. You're invited, too - all are welcome!
Even nearer on the horizon is our Schedule F tax workshop for farmers. We'll be following up last year's successful workshop on Monday, Feb. 28 - and thanks to our partners at Farm Credit East, it's FREE!
We have also scheduled the next session of our (also free) Explore Farming! workshop for Wednesday, March 2 at our office in Lowell. This two-hour class is a prerequisite to our Farm Business Planning Course, and a great way for prospective farmers to sort out how to begin planning their farm dream. Please email Sam Anderson with any questions.
 If you're familiar with our program - and if you're the sentimental type - you might also want to stop by our office this month and bid it adieu. That's right, we're moving! Starting March 15 we will be in our new offices just down the street, at 155 Merrimack Street. We'll be on the 3rd floor, along with many of our colleagues at Community Teamwork, Inc. Our programs and services are all coming with us - yes, the library too - and we will welcome clients and visitors just as we always have. The move should ultimately expand our capacity to help farmers, as it will give us (and our farmers!) close access to other programs at CTI.
One of these days the snow will melt away - until then, keep warm, stay safe, and drop by anytime!
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Profile: Suliman Kamara
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Small Farmer Marketing Cooperatives, from Lowell to Liberia
 The ability to sell farm products at a reasonable profit is critical to farm viability, yet marketing is one of the biggest challenges for many farmers around the globe. In New Entry's Farm Business Planning Course, McKenzie explains to new farmers that the difficulty of farming is not growing food, it's selling it, and doing so profitably. Farmers often focus all of their efforts on production and not enough researching markets and establishing relationships with buyers. For many New Entry farmers the complexities of accessing local markets goes beyond a lack of time or sufficient volume. Many immigrant and refugee farmers must contend with language and cultural barriers, in addition constraints imposed by their full-time, off-farm jobs, inadequate transportation, and a lack of knowledge of market opportunities and the packaging and display standards necessary to access them.
 These market barriers motivated New Entry to start the World PEAS Cooperative in 2005. Suliman Kamara, himself a 2005 New Entry Farm Business Planning Course graduate, was the first marketing manager of the World PEAS Cooperative. In 2008 he returned to Liberia to apply similar cooperative models with small farmers in his home country.
Working with ACDI/VOCA, a Washington-based non-profit that seeks to promote economic development, Suliman is assisting smallholder cocoa farmers. Similar to some World PEAS farmers in Massachusetts, many of the cocoa growers Suliman works with lack information about market opportunities, individually have insufficient volumes to attract major buyers, and lack means of transporting their cocoa and other crops to market. Cooperatives like World PEAS and the farmers'associations that Suliman currently works with can provide several services to small farmers: cooperatives can purchase inputs on behalf of farmers at bulk rates, invest in shared infrastructure, provide technical assistance, provide small loans, and coordinate, aggregate and market produce cooperatively. Suliman's team, much like New Entry and World PEAS, helps farmers source inputs, such as improved seed varieties and provides technical assistance. He is working to develop nurseries to raise improved cocoa varieties, many of which were destroyed during the civil war. These improved varieties, along with technical assistance, help farmers achieve the quality and volume necessary to access better markets and ultimately improve their livelihoods. 
Reflecting on both his work with World PEAS and the cocoa farmers in Liberia, Suliman explains reinvestment in cooperative infrastructure is a crucial - yet often foreign - concept for many farmers. Without the initial investments in a delivery van and cooler, World PEAS would not have been able to expand its markets to current levels. While cocoa does not require refrigeration, the raw beans require significant processing to produce a finished product. With commercial roasters, winnowers, grinders and presses necessary to produce chocolate products, combined costing upwards of a quarter million dollars, such infrastructure is clearly beyond the means of any one farmer. Suliman hopes that cooperatively the farmers will be able to raise or borrow the money necessary to purchase this equipment. Marketing cooperatives don't just benefit the producers. By helping small farmers succeed in a landscape dominated by larger producers, farmer cooperatives can support a more just and environmentally sound food system. The cocoa farmers that Suliman works with manage diversified farms averaging just 3 acres. These farmers do most of the work by hand and often cannot afford pesticides or fertilizers, making them more sustainable than their larger, industrial counterparts. Shareholders in the World PEAS CSA also benefit from the operations of the cooperative, including the aggregation of produce from nearly three dozen small-scale farmers scattered throughout the greater Boston area, and delivery to over a dozen convenient pickup locations. First at New Entry and now in Liberia, Suliman continues to help improve the livelihoods of small farmers and build a more economically and environmentally sustainable and just food system. |
Free Tax Workshop for Farmers | | Back by popular demand, New Entry is offering another tax workshop for farmers - for free! Take the Surprise Out of "Schedule F" Date: Monday, February 28th Time: 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM Location: New Entry Lowell Office - 9 Central Street, Suite 402, Lowell Are you interested in learning how to prepare your tax return for your farm business? This class will help you to: - Learn how to organize your 2010 farm records and prepare the Schedule F tax form.
- Find the best way to account for your farm business expenses and reduce your tax liability.
- Take steps to better track your expenses going forward and plan for next year!
Thanks to our partners at Farm Credit East, we are able to offer this course free of charge! Please email Kimberley Fitch by Friday, February 25th if you would like to register for this workshop. 
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You're Invited! New Entry Graduation is March 31 | |  We invite all friends of New Entry to join us for a graduation celebration on:
Date: Thursday, March 31st Time: 6:00 - 8:30 PM Location: Armand Mercier Center, 21 Salem Street, Lowell MA
Parking: Available behind the Mercier Center (Accessible from Merrimack Street) Please join us in honoring the hard work of our newest crop of Farm Business Planning students. From October through March, we've held two very full courses of hopeful "farm-preneurs." Each of the two dozen(+) graduates will have completed a six-week business planning course, and written a detailed business plan for the start up or expansion of their farm business enterprise. Listen to these farmers speak about how their farm business studies allowed them to plow forward with farm business ownership. Learn about what inspires our trainees to follow their personal farm dream. We are pleased to welcome Scott Soares, Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources, as our guest of honor this year. Light refreshments will be served. |
World PEAS CSA Shares Available Now! | |  New Entry's very own World PEAS CSA is now taking registrations for the 2011 season. Both Large and Small shares feature traditional and ethnic fruits and vegetables, grown by New Entry farmers, along with sweet corn, apples, peaches and other crops from other local farms. The main season runs from mid-June to mid-October (18 weeks), and a separate Extended Season Share extends the season to Thanksgiving. World PEAS offers you the unique opportunity to get fresh, local and seasonal produce while supporting the beginning, immigrant and refugee farmers enrolled with New Entry. Shares are limited, so register now. For more information or to register, visit www.worldpeascsa.org or email mhimmel@comteam.org.
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Job Opening at New Entry | | Help Link Farmers to Landowners to Expand Farm Activity in Massachusetts! New Entry is seeking a creative, self-starter to manage a farmland matching service to link farmers who are seeking land, to landowners with available land. Our project assists beginning farmers, many of whom are socially and economically disadvantaged, to establish farm business enterprises. The Farmland Matching Service Coordinator is responsible for leading a team to expand the existing farmland match program, and develop/lead a new working collaboration of land match service providers in Massachusetts. A Bachelor's degree and experience in delivering technical assistance to farmers in the areas of production, business planning, farmland assessment and/or access to capital/credit is required. For additional information and complete job description please visit the Community Teamwork, Inc. website. |
Local Produce Packs an Extra Punch of Nutrition | | By Patti Welch  By now many people have jumped on the local food movement bandwagon. It's no secret that buying local produce helps the environment and keeps money within the community. Another great benefit of eating locally is that it comes along with health benefits.
A typical fruit or vegetable found in a supermarket might travel thousands of miles before making it to the shelf, while that same fruit or vegetable found at a local farmer's market might have come from the next town over. It may take days or weeks for that supermarket apple to be tossed into a cart after being picked, packaged, shipped, and possibly spending more days on the shelf. But a locally grown apple has generally been picked and reached the consumer's hands within the last 24 hours.
The two apples look the same, so how could they really be much different? It turns out that a direct relationship exists between how long a fruit or vegetable has been away from the soil or a vine and how much of its vitamins and minerals have degraded. Supermarket produce is often picked before its peak ripeness, which means it never gets the chance to reach its full flavor or nutrient capacity. So that local apple that was picked within the last 24 hours will not only be bursting with more flavor, but it will also greet its lucky consumer with larger amounts of its prized Vitamins A and C.
 Additionally, because local farmers don't have to worry about how well their produce will fare in packaging during shipping and while being stocked at the supermarket, they are allowed more freedom with which crops they can grow and sell. Large farmers give consideration while choosing their crops to be grown based off which ones might survive a lot of abuse. Without this worry, local farmers can grow a more diverse crop share. This not only pleases foodies at farm markets by providing more difficult to find produce, but it provides all consumers with a wider selection of nutrient-packed fruits and vegetables. The more diversity one has in their diet, the wider array of disease-fighting and immune-enhancing nutrients one is able to obtain.
Since local produce usually comes from smaller farms, the consumer also receives the benefit of food generally grown using fewer chemicals, pesticides and antibiotics. If buying food made hundreds or thousands of miles away, the consumer may be unable to find out which chemical products were used before the product made it to their plate. It's much easier to create a relationship with a local farmer and find out under which conditions the crops were grown, but chances are that the produce from a small farm was made using less chemicals and other unnatural products.
So feel even better about eating locally! It's good for the environment, it's good for the community, and it's good for your health.
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