Hills of Milk and Honey—
Craving Community BY AMY MILLIRON
I
thought it might be too late in my life to start a farm. A beloved mentor encouraged me to go for it. I am a 42-year-old women who has longed for the chance to provide an inclusive space centered on regenerative agriculture that fosters community and allows folks the chance to learn from each other. My formal background and graduate level education is in teaching and curriculum and instruction. All previous titles I’ve held prior to choosing a career in agriculture have revolved around teaching young children through adults. When I am facilitating the learning of others, I learn as well. There is so much we all have to offer each other when we come together and share our knowledge.
networking with folks in agriculture and I first participated by taking Holistic Management’s online Getting Started course. I was hooked! That bit of information I received, as well as visiting a local Open Gate day, led me to register for the full Beginning Farmer Training Program. I knew that the knowledge I would learn from the course would help me manage the challenges I was facing, almost entirely, if I put into practice what I was about to learn from the course.
Holistic Help
Creating a holistic goal and committing every decision made from that point on to fit
nearly a year ago. The instructors were very well prepared and extremely knowledgeable. The pace of the course was perfect and allowed time to discuss, think through, brainstorm with the class, and put new skills into practice on my own farm and in my own enterprises. I was just in the beginning phase of launching my farm and my business so the timing of the course was perfect. I was able to use the Decision Testing Questions to help determine how to handle many looming questions including whether I should buy a tractor right away, whether I should take out a loan, whether I should rent out a guest house to earn more income, and much
Community and Learning
I have found that I am not the only person who craves community as much as I do. When I decided to begin my educational farm, Hills of Milk and Honey, in Dripping Springs, Texas, I spent several years preparing for the launch of my business. I volunteered on local farms, networked at farmers markets, interned in teaching gardens, worked for and became an apprentice beekeeper, and I completed my certification in Holistic Management International’s Beginning Farmers and Ranchers Training Program. My goal was to learn as much as I could about launching a diversified farm where my community could come together and learn from each other. While participating in all of these endeavors to gain experience as a farmer, I shared my unique ideas about my farm with everyone I came in contact with to gauge interest. I explained to folks about my desire to ‘grow farmers’ in an effort to encourage children, teens and adults to get involved in the slow food movement. The response was overwhelmingly positive and these folks who believed in this idea from the beginning are now the farm’s biggest fans! The challenges faced in the beginning included obtaining land, connecting with mentors in each of the enterprises I planned to implement, researching profitability of each enterprise, learning how to obtain funds to begin the process, fine tuning my marketing skills, and knowing where to focus my energy each step of the way. I had learned about Holistic Management International though my
Amy Milliron found HMI’s Beginning Farmer Training Program just what she needed to start a profitable farm. One of the core values in her holistic goal is to engage her community with her farm and children as a big part of her community. within that holistic goal was exactly the focus I was seeking when I was planning the future of my educational farm. Prior to learning how to create a holistic goal, I had lots of ideas swirling around about how to diversify my farm and offer educational opportunities to my community. It wasn’t until I really spent time on creating my holistic goal, that I realized how manageable it would be to move forward with my business plans. I had previously tried creating a business plan from scratch, with every detail figured out in advance. Oh goodness, that just doesn’t work. Instead, Holistic Management teaches to decide on the profit desired in advance, and make the plans to get there fit the holistic goal. Voila! It works! The benefits I received from taking the course were worth every penny spent and every minute dedicated to the training I completed
more. This tool has proven invaluable because our family now applies these test questions to all major, and some minor, decisions that we make even when they are unrelated to the farm as a business. I have stayed in contact with the instructors, and almost every single classmate from the course. In fact, several of the folks have taken part as presenters here at Hills of Milk and Honey as we’ve increased our workshop offerings to the community. After getting to know so many of them, it was clear that each person had individual, specialized skills that would be an incredible asset to my community. Each time I fill the semester’s calendar with workshops, I put out a request for proposals to the community, including the instructors and classmates from HMI’s Beginning Farmer CONTINUED ON PAGE 6
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