A project to offer farmers expert support as they develop their businesses is developing a unique way of offering mentoring to farmers.
The Get Mentoring in Farming programme is run by the SFEDI Group and supported by the Lloyds Banking Group, LANTRA, BBA, The Farming Community Network, Waitrose and the National Federation of Young Farmers’ Clubs.
Get Mentoring in Farming is a UK-wide initiative to recruit and train 200 volunteer business mentors from the Farming Sector then match them with farming and agriculture related businesses who are looking for mentoring support.
Now, it is working developing projects which offer support to groups of farmers in addition to offering the service to individuals on a one-to-one basis.
The first group mentoring initiative is run by a farming mentor in south west England, Cornwall farmer Andrew Brewer, who will be holding the group mentoring session for Get Mentoring in Farming registered mentee dairy farmers in late January. Andrew, aged 44, who runs Ennis Barton Farm, at St Columb, Cornwall, is the third generation of his family to run the farm, which was created ninety years ago and has grown from 60 cows to 650. His father, who ran the farm, died when Andrew was fourteen and family members ran it until Andrew took over when he was twenty six. Andrew said: “I had always been interested in agriculture and neighbours were very good in supporting me but you do tend to learn from your mistakes. I became aware of Get Mentoring in Farming when I was finishing a Nuffield scholarship in attracting and retaining good quality people to the industry.
I am already working one to one with a mentee but it seemed a good idea to develop a group as well. The idea is that we can share experiences among ourselves and if someone has a more specific problem we can point them in the right direction,
The idea is in its embryonic stage at the moment but in time the hope is that not only can they mentor each other but they can widen it out to other farmers and speed up the way we cascade the information down to farmers.”
The group mentoring session will act as a further opportunity for each student to seek help with the needs and signpost them to additional support should they need it, including financial advice. Get Mentoring in Farming is also working with mentors in north west England to develop a second group mentoring initiative.
Phil Bramhall, Mentoring Manager for Get Mentoring in Farming, said: “Group mentoring offered by a host mentor is an interesting development in the farming sector. It’s a model of support where the host farmer becomes a mentor champion for their region, promoting group mentoring as an effective way of providing support to larger numbers of farmers. The idea could become a model of more sustainable mentoring support to farmers. It is a model of mentoring support which currently works well in other sectors. It might also prove more appealing to mentors and mentees given the practical and operational constraints in day to day farming as well as the location/travel issues often involved.”
Get Mentoring in Farming is going from strength to strength as it recruits mentors and farmer mentees. The programme, working in conjunction with farming organisations, scheme partners, education institutions and training companies, has achieved several objectives which have included:
* To date 75 farmer mentees and 213 farm/agri-business mentors have registered with Get Mentoring in Farming.
*Working in collaboration with The Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers (RABDF) and three FE colleges on their Entrepreneurs in Dairying programme yielded 17 farmer mentees and seven new mentors.
* Supporting Farmers Weekly with its Fertile Minds for Young Farmers in Business scheme yielded 12 new registrants to the mentoring programme.
* Working in collaboration with Business Mentors South West has secured 39 mentor/mentee matches and mentoring relationships. The partnership has also helped developed the group mentoring model in south west England.
The mentoring programme is seen as important because The Future of Farming Review (2013) highlighted the important role played by mentoring in developing business and management skills in the sector, for both those new to agriculture and those who are more experienced but who face challenges as the industry develops so rapidly.
Recruiting and providing on-going support
Get Mentoring in Farming is still recruiting for new mentees. To access the support available mentees must register before 31st March 2015 as the programme funding will end on this date. New mentoring relationships established by the end of March will continue. Resources and on-line training will remain accessible through the Get Mentoring in Farming website.