Profit with Sustainable Agriculture and Insights from Pasa Sustainable Agriculture
In this episode of the Direct Farm Podcast, we're delighted to welcome Christina Kostelecky from Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture. Listen as we dive into the history of Pasa, discuss the benefits of growing sustainably, and how Pasa and its members share ideas to promote a sustainable future in agriculture.
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Intro
Allyssa: [00:00:26] Welcome to the Direct Farm Podcast. I am excited for today's guest, we have Christina Kostelecky, the Operations Director for PASA Sustainable Agriculture with us here today. Welcome Christina.
Christina: [00:00:38] Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Allyssa: [00:00:41] We're excited to have you. I think this is going to be a great conversation learning more about PASA as an organization, to start tell us a little bit more about the history of PASA.
Christina: [00:00:50] Yeah, so Pasa started as a conference actually more than 30 years ago at this point, all the way back in 1992, we had our first conference. And at the time it was sort of like, extension agencies were serving the conventional or, or, you know, farms doing things in a typical way, but there weren't really resources for folks who wanted to do things in a more sustainable way.
So this conference got kicked off in 1992 and from there they said, Hey, we should develop an organization around this. And so that's how PASA got started with a group of folks from the Penn State College area of Pennsylvania. And then we just continued to grow slowly as the community was able to support us.
And now we just held our 30th annual sustainable agriculture conference, which was very exciting to us. Barn2Door was there as well. And we now have more than 14 employees and we cover the entire mid Atlantic region.
Allyssa: [00:01:49] Wow. That's some significant growth in a very short amount of time. So that's great to see. What types of farms do you currently support.
Christina: [00:01:57] Yeah, we support so many different kinds of farms, which makes it really exciting and also can be really difficult. You know who are our members, who are farmers? We've got everyone from, Dairy, to Diversified Vegetable, to Fruit Growers, to Row Crop Farmers, everyone in between. We really are a big picture, a big umbrella organization where we welcome every kind of Farmer to join us. So that can be a small urban farm that's you know, less than an acre to a really large row crop farm that is hundreds of acres.
Allyssa: [00:02:30] Yeah, but that's great to know that your reach is so broad because I'm sure in Pennsylvania, being one of those big Farming states that you work with a ton of different Farmers who sell different products. So for Farmers who are interested in joining PASA and becoming a member. What steps do they need to take to apply?
Christina: [00:02:47] On our website, PASAfarming.org. You can find the information that you need to join. We actually many, many, many of our members learn about us through word of mouth, either through folks like Barn2Door or their neighbor, or a workshop that they attend through PASA. So , I really encourage you to join our e-news.
That's a really great way to kind of see what we're doing. What's coming up, that you can get connected with us. And then if it seems like it's the right fit, if either one of our research projects are educational events or our Farmer to Farmer training programs are sort of the right fit for you, then you can become a member and start participating in all of these programs that we've got going on.
Allyssa: [00:03:29] For sure. So you kind of touched on going into some of the benefits that there are to being a member at PASA from the e-newsletter that you just shared, as well as, you know, the conferences, the trainings, the additional resources, what would you say are some of those key or beneficial aspects of a PASA membership that you have definitely noticed have helped Farmers grow and expand over the years?
Christina: [00:03:51] Yeah. The things that Farmers tell us are really valuable to them are the networking connections. Our conference, the educational component is really, really, really important. We provide Farmers with other Farmers who are experts and other experts in the field to help them learn about the trade and help them expand their current processes, help them pivot to a new process. Maybe that's a new marketing channel. Maybe that's a new value added product. Maybe that's a new marketing stream. There's a lot of different techniques that farmers can use. It might even be like transitioning their farm to a new generation of ownership or new generation of management.
So that educational component is the first, the primary thing that people talk about as being really valuable about PASA, but also if you're at an event there for the education, you're also getting a lot of really great networking with people directly in your community. So it's kind of the equivalent of showing up at a hay auction, right? You get to do that chit chat about topics that are released specific to you that are meaningful and will have an impact on your farm business.
Other things that farmers find really valuable are participating in our research programs. So we have a financial benchmark research program, a soil health benchmark program, and diversified livestock research program.
So all of these different things help you see, what is your Farm doing from year to year, that's making an impact. Then also being able to benchmark that against your peers to say, "is this you know where it should be. Is this where I want my farms to be?" And is it where I want to be headed? And if not, what do I need to do to change course?
Yeah, finally, I think the last thing we have two different apprenticeship programs at PASA, which is really valuable, not just to our farm members, but sometimes the folks who aren't yet in farming, who wants to be in farming. And also to the farmers who are looking for really highly qualified managers and future owners for the farm, making those connections with the next generation is really valuable to them as well.
Allyssa: [00:06:00] And I loved how you touched on the networking component in addition to the education and the resources. Maybe touch a little bit more on going virtual and how that's changed in terms of your grief and being able to interact with your membership and how members are able to interact with each other.
Christina: [00:06:16] Yeah, everything went virtual this year, right? Farmers figured out how to sell online. Farmer's markets figured out how to sell online and package things for pickup. PASA figured out how to do webinars while we were already doing a few webinars, all 50 of our events throughout the year, suddenly switched to online kind of overnight.
So we figured out how to make the best of Farmers' time. You know, if we're going to ask them to show up for an hour long webinar, it's gotta be really worth their time. So we've got to have the experts there. We've got to be providing programming around what the farmers are asking for what they need at the moment.
And in a lot of ways, webinars allowed us to pivot really, really quickly. So instead of needing to set up you know, a farm visit and figure out all of the logistics of parking and food and you know, social distancing and all that sort of thing, we could do this online and in a couple of days put together really high quality webinar for Farmers. Taking an entire conference virtual and being able to maintain those interactions that happen. Those like bumping into each other in the hallway was a much harder, much bigger ask. We pulled off more than 90 different educational programs in that conference this year, but we also helped people make those casual connections.
We did that through a series of different, we had a morning meeting where we put people into kind of random breakouts. It was sort of like assigning someone at a table at a conference dinner saying, "Hey, you get to sit with these folks and chat with them." We had lunch breakouts.
We even had game nights so that the whole family could get involved. We've really tried our best to find ways to make this virtual space feel like it had an atmosphere and feel like people could make connections with each other. We still miss the hugs. We didn't find a replacement for that. So we are looking forward to being in person again next year for our conference, but there were a lot of positives to going virtual as well.
Our carbon footprint was reduced. We didn't have people driving hundreds of miles. They didn't have to stay in hotel beds. They could stay at home. They could get their work done on the Farm and still show up and connect in this virtual way. While we will be looking forward to being in person, we were also happy to host this in this space and learn some really valuable lessons about bringing things online.
Allyssa: [00:08:44] That's great to see and to see that engagement as well between the farmers. So going back a little bit more to PASA as members to your membership, how would you say that they've been able to pivot over this past year in 2020?
Christina: [00:08:57] Yeah, here at PASA and I think with all of our members, we can barely remember March and April of 2020, where there were well-established rules and plans and customers suddenly there were questions, questions, and more questions.
Farmers that were selling to restaurants figured out how to do CSAs and direct sales, Farmer's markets figured out how to implement social distancing and use volunteers to manage people in this open space that was alot safer than, you know, for example, grocery stores our members did a tremendous job of pivoting.
Pennsylvania happens to be the number one in the nation for direct to consumer sales. So a lot of our Farms were already used to interacting with their customers. Now it became, how do we interact, but from a distance and how do we increase this engagement to a whole scope of new customers?
So a few of my favorite success stories Are examples where Farm markets popped up kind of overnight to help Farmers in their community, sell to customers. And in many cases that meant figuring out a whole online ordering system for a whole bunch of different Farms all at once, which is a testament to the willpower and the community that we have in our membership.
A couple of other success stories, you know, a lot of farms. Increased sales, but at the same time started employing more people and figured out a lot of regulations, both from the state and federal level very, very quickly. And we use this term pivot a lot, but Farmers have always been great at pivoting and figuring out . Solutions. This just really showcased the ability when we give Farmers the space to do this, that they can figure things out and fill in where there are gaps in their community.
Allyssa: [00:10:48] What would you say are some of those tactics that Farmers use in terms of transitioning their business online?
Christina: [00:10:54] The most successful Farms that we've seen have been the ones that don't try to have one person do everything. You know, we're already asking Farmers to stay out in the field well into the Twilight times. They, you know, if you're out in the field until nine o'clock at night, you can't also be online managing all of these systems and ways of selling things.
So lean on folks like Barn2Door, community members, Farm workers, figure out if you've got a Farm employee who is really great at this and wants to do it, let them step up and take some responsibility for it. And then also I would say our farmers understand that incremental change is often necessary.
That wasn't necessarily able in, in early 2020, we had to just do it overnight, but oftentimes that meant, okay, we're going to list our products online and folks can buy stuff and that's kind of it. But now maybe that you've been doing it for a year. Maybe you can add another marketing channel, like wholesale to your online sales.
Maybe you can add a CSA to your online sales or maybe you can expand beyond what you're doing now in terms of marketing and outreach to new customers. So I think those incremental changes relying on people in your community to help you. Those are all kinds of things that we've seen Farmers be really successful at in terms of their marketing. Not expecting to make these leaps and bounds overnight every single year.
Allyssa: [00:12:22] I love how you touched on the incremental changes because I think sometimes it can be so overwhelming to know that there's so many options out there, but ultimately listening to your buyers, figuring out as a business, you know, how are we able to meet those buyers needs and starting small implementing subscriptions or delivery and establishing recurring cashflow.
So looking ahead, I know we just started spring. Can't believe it's a new season, but here we are in 2021 in spring. So what would you say, you kind of touched on it a little bit, but more about the planning aspect. How are Farmers getting ahead of the curve? Being able to plan for this coming spring and summer as the months start to get a little bit busier with buyers.
Christina: [00:13:01] Communicate with your customers, help your customers get excited about whatever your Farm has planned and how your customers can engage with that plan. That's going to be different for every Farm out there, but just keep those lines of communication open and let those community members both give you feedback, but also give you praise and give you direction and help support you. Where, where you're looking for support.
Also build in time for internal communications and connection. Design some regular reflection time. One example that we see a lot is like a weekly staff and family lunch. To vent and share ideas and dream big. So be willing to draw on the strengths of your team members, both so that they have buy-in and because they're going to come up with some great ways to pivot when it's time to do so.
It can be really easy to be overwhelmed with. Planning just in terms of getting transplants in the ground, getting a marketing schedule, inevitable equipment breakdowns, but finding some time for strategy and team building is just as important. And we know that you're busy enough that if you don't plan it into your schedule, it's not going to happen. So be really intentional about those internal team connections and about communicating with your customers.
Allyssa: [00:14:19] And I think that's huge thinking about from the perspective of, if I spend this time now to organize myself and to communicate internally to my team. As well as externally to my customers have that content calendar in place, as well as a marketing strategy, then ultimately that's going to save me time later down the road as well. So to close. Is there anything top of mind for you that you'd love to share for farmers? Anything that you've noticed from the past years through farmers' success stories.
Christina: [00:14:48] From PASA's financial benchmark study, we can say diversify your revenue streams, but don't spread yourself too thin. Build partnerships with your neighbors to fill in your gaps. And then build meaningful relationships with your customers. We saw a big uptick in, for example, CSA purchases and direct from Farm sales last year.
So to retain that, Farmers will have to remind customers of the personal interactions, the fresh food, and the impacts on their, on our communities. And we really appreciate Barn2Door's emphasis on those relationships and communications with customers. It's a huge, valuable asset that you all bring to the table.
Allyssa: [00:15:29] Well thank you so much Christina for joining us today
Christina: [00:15:32] Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. And I'm so proud to work for Farmers who are feeding our communities and really making a positive impact.
Allyssa: [00:15:41] I also want to extend my thanks to the entire membership at PASA, here at Barn2Door, we are delighted to partner with organizations like PASA, who support farmers who practice sustainable agriculture in all 50 states including the state of Pennsylvania so thank you again Christina for your time. For more information on PASA, you can always visit their website, PASAFarming.org, and for more information on Barn2Door. You can visit our website as well Barn2Door.com/Resources. There's numerous resources on there and best practices for your Farm. Thank you so much for tuning in and we will see you next week!
Outro