At long last, a week I've been waiting for has come. This Sunday I depart, on behalf of Foxtrot, to a week long business intensive with FARMpreneurs and the Ideagardennetwork.
Foxtrot was selected out of 140 applicants to this cohort alone because of our "outstanding leadership in planetary stewardship, community engagement, and systems-level innovation". I'll be joining 17 other farmers (several other Hudson Valley Farmers!!!) for a week long Strategic Sprint designed to help "unlock your growth potential to be leaders in the regenerative agricultural space that our world needs".
I am feeling all the things - humbled, terrified, excited, nervous, relieved (to name a few). It's been a strange thing to make plans for the growing season ahead, knowing so much may change this week. Each one of us applied with a "big hairy audacious goal" for our business that we needed outside help to achieve. Foxy's BHAG?To leverage the business to allow us to pay at least a living wage to employees and owner.
In a region renowned for its agriculture - working farm owners & farm workers are scraping by with extraordinarily high housing, food, & childcare costs. A living wage for a single person in the Hudson Valley is $25.85, if you have a child that goes up to $48.59. The minimum wage locally is $15.50. I see most farm wages coming in between $18-$22/hour, ourselves included. This feels simultaneously unacceptable and totally understandable given the financial circumstances working farms find themselves in.
Surely Foxtrot was accepted to the Strategic Spring for a host of reasons, but it is not lost on me that projects were likely accepted based on 1. plausibility and 2. scalability. With the help of Farmprenures & without illusions of grander -- Could we build a financial model to offer to other farmers to get out of this wage trap? Here's to hoping. It's worth trying. Wish us (all) luck.
xx Kate