AdAgrA Conference 2025: Growing Better

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AdAgrA: Adventist Agriculture Association

Institutional Farming

Fred Flint

Tips for Finding Success with a Ministry Farm

It's been very nice, very cold, but very nice time so far.

And we pray that everything will go well as we continue this conference.

Before we start, let's have a word of prayer.

Our gracious Father, I pray that you'll lead and guide in this presentation, as well as everything else that goes on in this conference.

We're here only for your honor and glory.

We're here to learn from each other, take back good things to our places, to put into practice things that will make it even more successful.

And hopefully Lord, that many souls will be won through the job that we do.

My name is Fred Flint, and I'm at the moment working as a farmer at Harbor Hills Academy, and I've worked in a capacity of institutional farmer.

I first was a farm manager when I was 15 at a farm in Michigan, an institute, that included 10 acres of blueberries.

So pretty much my whole life, I've either been in an institutional farm, or in some ways connected with farming.

Now, how many of you are connected with farming where there's young people or children involved.

Now I think we need to form a support group and have some pity parties.

Because we are in a very, we have unique challenges.

But what I'm to speak about goes on beyond academy or grade school gardens.

It includes everything that is connected with farming for an institution.

And I have been to a lot of these at Agris or other conferences and there's a lot of specific things that are spoken about, very important.

But I have seen the need for some basic fundamental connection.

Many of us have worked as a farmer on our own farms, okay, market gardening, and that's really, really important.

But when you work on an institutional farm, there's a lot more involved than just trying to make a living, my family and I.

And so we want to delve in a little bit to that corner of the market, that corner of the market so to speak.

How many of us have been, is it our first year?

And I just took some things that I have observed others.

Yeah, we all have the ability to observe others and the good things they do and the mistakes they make.

Now if you tell me, okay, 2 years ago, if I knew quite a bit, I'd say, yeah.

I look back 2 years ago, I said, no, I didn't know.

And if any of us says, I'm the expert, no.

None of us will get to expert level because there's always something to learn.

Yes, some have more experience than others, and that's what we're here for.

And so I've learned to trial and error, like it says here, observation of others and myself, and a school of hard knocks.

I made some pretty big mistakes, and I've learned things through that.

A little bit about Harvard Hills Academy.

Here we're making a game of planting onions.

We planted about 35, 000 onions and we have to do it really quick because early in the spring there's a lot of rain and then when it rains it doesn't dry off for very long, it takes a long time to dry off so everyone gets out of school and comes up and helps us plant and they're having a great time.

We have an 18, 000 square foot greenhouse where we grow all of our greens all year long, tomatoes most of the year, and other things.

My daughter with an abundant harvest of different kinds of lettuce, and greenhouse harvest, that was just a little while ago.

All right, the foundational considerations when you talk about a school farm.

And we're going to talk about the distinct differences in some aspects that a school farm has different than what you'd say is a market garden, market farm or like a family we're farming.

There are some distinct differences and we'll delve into that too.

But we need to have a clear understanding of expectations.

Now, when I'm working as myself, my family and I, in our market garden, we make the rules.

But when I'm in an institutional farm, I've got a board above me that makes the rules.

And if I think that I can do whatever I want, I'm sorely mistaken.

So I've got to talk to somebody, the person's, my bosses, and I have to get to a clear understanding of the expectations.

These first 3 are very, very similar, and they're connected.

Clear written directives from the leadership.

When an institutional farm, if there's not a connection that clear written directives from your leadership, there's always gonna be headbutting, I told you so's, and finally, failure.

Know the role of the farm in the vision and missions, I said missions plural, of the institution, okay.

This, these 3 have resulted in more failures of institutional farming than anything else.

First of all, the farmer doesn't get a clear vision or understanding of what his superiors want.

Second of all, the superiors don't even know what they want.

There, you have got to sit down and talk this stuff through rationally before a single dollar is spent, okay?

Number 4, know your commitment as the farm manager, even through possible disagreements.

You will have times when I just can't stand these people that are my bosses, and they can't stand you.

But you have committed because God has called you, and you'll work through those situations.

Sometimes we try to do it alone, or we try to do too much without enough help.

Okay, this is important too, have a clear financial commitment from your leadership, financial.

Not some vague ideas of this might be available.

And we're going to delve into some of the nuances of the financial side of in the institutional farming, okay?

But having a clear financial commitment from your leadership.

From you, you're going to say, I'll produce, with God's help, this much.

I, but I need this piece of equipment, that piece of equipment, and I need to upgrade the irrigation system, it's gonna cost this and this and this.

Can you provide that before I even start?

And we'll talk about some, if there isn't any financial, because some of these institutions are bare bones.

And so we have to arrange something because even if there's no money available, a lot can be done.

They're still these kids or whatever an institution, in my way of thinking, I mean, because I'm at an academy, these kids, if I can teach them how to work, even if I don't make any money, it's worth it to me.

Daniel Nicholls

Taking Care of Our Primary Customer: The Cafeteria

You might wonder who this face is behind me up on the screen.

We are, I am Daniel Nichols, for those of you who have not met me before or seen me.

I am the agriculture director at Holbrook Indian School.

We're a boarding school for Native American students.

And we have a lot of awesome programs, including a farm that I get the privilege to manage and teach.

And we also call our school HIS, so that's what the acronym is.

It didn't fit on 1 line to write food services director.

So I'm going to let my colleague introduce herself here.

And I am Angela Barber, and I'm the current food services director at Holbrook Indian School.

This is my first year as a director and last year I worked as a cafeteria associate, but my third year at Holbrook Indian School, I worked in the dorm my first year.

Angela, due to her responsibilities as the cafeteria, as the food services director, is not able to be here in person.

Fortunately, we were able to work it out that she's able to be here virtually.

So we're gonna get some input from a cafeteria perspective, since that's what we're talking about.

Now you know who we are, what we do, and why we're here.

We are working with Zoom, so little delay there.

I know what the next slide is, So when we get there, I'll be able to, the slides will catch up to me, I suppose.

So, the title of the presentation was, I'm gonna keep looking at that and thinking about it.

So the title of the presentation was taking care of a primary customer.

So there's some language that we're using very intentionally there.

The way we try to, do I need to enable screen sharing for you?

The view that we have chosen to adopt at our institution is that the cafeteria is a client, a customer of the cafeteria.

It is not another department that I get to dictate anything to.

It is not another department that I'm going to view as a dumping ground for produce that's about to go bad.

If you had a restaurant as a customer, if you run a farm and you have a restaurant as a customer, think of the cafeteria like that.

They do not have time to clean aphids off of collard greens.

Do we also work at the same institution with the same mission?

But that is the cafeteria's prerogative to decide, it's between the cafeteria and administration, how they are going to serve the institution.

And if they are going to serve the institution by preparing food that the farm is trying to get rid of, that is up to the cafeteria.

But that is not between me and the cafeteria to decide, that is between the cafeteria and administration to decide.

So I'm wanting to start with that preface before we move on to everything else.

So, those of you who have been in it at 1 of my presentations before talking about institutional agriculture are going to recognize this phrase.

Anything we do at an institution is going to start with the why.

You heard me say this before, Talk about the why?

For those of you that haven't, what is the why?

And if we ask The farm manager, the president, principal, a teacher, food services director, maintenance guy.

If you ask anybody at your institution, why does your institution have a farm?

Hopefully, ideally, they would give the same answer.

1 of the answers to this question at Holbrook Indian School is something we call the Garden to Plate Program.

And that is that we want produce from the farm that students have grown to be prepared and served in the cafeterias.

That's something that we've chosen to take on.

So at Holbrook Indian School, Our goal is to use as much farm produce as we possibly can in the cafeteria.

So that is a goal we have, again, as an institution, agreed upon between me and administration as the farm director, and between Angela and administration as the cafeteria, as the food services director.

Now we're going to talk about how we have gotten there and hopefully give you some practical tips of how you could do the same if you would like to at your institution.

So, Angela, have you had to make any have you had to adapt at all in order to be able to utilize farm produce?

I mean, a lot of the adaptation starts way before I even serve anything, which is having to let my brain know months in advance that I have to plan the menu and I have to plan for what I'm going to use in the future right now.

And that was a little challenging for me.

Now I want to highlight though, if you go to a restaurant, let's say you have a restaurant in town, and you look at their menu, and you say, you know what?

They serve a lot of the same things that we grow.

I want to go to that restaurant and pick them up as a customer.

But that restaurant, the chef, the owner, the management is there in the mindset of they just buy, they have their vendor.

They can order on Monday, it comes in on Tuesday.

They can order on Thursday, it comes in on Friday.

They know what they want, they place their orders, it all comes in.

Now you're going to go to that restaurant and say, hey, I grow a lot of these things that you serve.

That restaurant is going to have to make the same adaptations that Angela was talking about.

They need to know what it is they actually want.

They have presumably a very somewhat stable menu, So it can be fairly predictable.

But you're going to need to work with them as a client in order to get them used to using farm fresh produce that you're delivering potentially on a different schedule than what they're used to.

So what I'm not, I'm not talking, we're not talking about making accommodations from the cafeteria's perspective in terms of you need to adapt yourself to how I work as a farm.

Mapping Success

I am the Agriculture Director at Holbrook Indian School.

We are a boarding school, a Seventh-day Adventist school in Holbrook, Arizona.

We're a boarding school for Native American students, primarily Navajo, but we have quite a few students that are not from the Navajo Nation this year.

So we have pretty good representation from the southwest area in terms of the various nations that are down there, native nations that are down there.

And then as a department director, I serve in some other administrative capacities as well.

Let's talk about this concept here, a map, okay?

What is that, what do you think that term means to you, mapping success?

What does that mean to you, what do you think?

Yes, we need to know where we're going if we want to be able to get there.

So that's why I chose that terminology, okay.

That is what we're gonna be talking, We're talking about planning, communication, prioritization for a ministry farm, an institutional farm.

I'm always going to say it because it is so important that it needs to be said every single time we talk about an institutional farm.

The why is, Why does your ministry, why does your institution, why does your lifestyle center your school?

And the goal is that your president, your farm manager, 1 of your students, probably 1 of your older students who's been there a few years, A teacher, your cafeteria director, maintenance guy, or maintenance worker.

I've seen some really good, talented maintenance ladies.

You ask any of these people at your institution, why do you have a farm?

Hopefully, you're gonna get the same answer.

If you're not gonna get the same answer, that is a whole other thing that you need to work out.

Because if the farm has an identity crisis, the farm manager thinks we have a farm because it's the ABCs of education.

It is necessary and helpful and a tremendous benefit to the school in that capacity.

If on the other hand you have somebody else at your school who's also saying, well, we have it because I don't know why we have it.

Well, that, we probably want to address that.

We might have somebody that says, oh, because we need, the kids need a vocational credit, you know, to graduate.

What is your farm doing to serve the mission of the school?

I'm saying school because that's where I work.

You have a mission statement, what does the farm do to support that, to serve that mission of the school?

And that becomes something that is known, this is why we have a farm, okay?

So we have a why, we know why we have a farm, what we're doing, how it serves the school.

Okay, we can answer this question at Holbrook Indian School with 4 different things.

1 is that we believe as a school that it is important for students to get sunshine and fresh air, to work and to interact with natural environments, because it is good for them mentally, physically, and spiritually.

We also believe, as a school, that it is important for our students to see the produce that they grow in the cafeteria.

They're more likely, statistically Significant fact that adolescents and primary school age children are significantly more likely to eat produce, fruits and vegetables, if they grew it.

We also believe that there's educational benefit.

I work with a science teacher for some of their, the science teacher.

Some of the science classes are held on the farm and we're talking about earth science and Soil chemistry and things like that.

And we do have that in our science class.

Working with the Bible teacher for certain lessons and taking what's being learned in Bible class and talking about it on the farm.

Working with the math teacher to know where they're at so that I can find practical math problems for the students to solve on the farm, like when we're laying out beds or figuring out how much produce we need to harvest.

Okay, so we believe in cross departmental education, practical application of what they're learning in other classrooms.

Those are the 3 that we're prioritizing right now.

We're going to talk about prioritization.

Okay, so we have a why for why we have a farm.

If you don't, that's definitely your starting point.

Now, once we know what the farm's mission is, we can set the farm's goals.

Now, once I know we want to get produce in the cafeteria, we can make a plan.

We can set the goal of the Garden to Plate program.

The goal is get as much food as we can in the cafeteria.

If we want to put a number on it, ideally in the future, 100% of the produce that's prepared and served in the cafeteria comes from our school's farm.

Now here's some common things And let's just talk about goal setting, okay?

If the farm's goal is to earn a profit, set a target.

So once you know what your why is, you can set a goal.

Set a target if you have profit as part of your target.

Do you have expected student learning outcomes?

Do you have things that you can assess to determine whether or not you are meeting your educational goals on your farm?

Pamela Dysinger

John Dysinger

Interns, U-turns and Returns

Father in heaven, we just thank you for the opportunity to be together and to talk about your plan for really educating the next generation of farmers.

And I pray that you would lead and guide as I share, and that you would bring things to my mind, that you would have me to say, in Jesus' name, amen.

So just for interest's sake, and because we're a small group, I'd just be interested to know who maybe has either been involved with leading out in an internship?

What's the internship experience here besides being interns?

Just interested for any of you actively farming and looking maybe to have interns?

This is, I think this was for the institutional track.

I feel confident that you'll go away feeling like maybe you have a little better idea of exactly what you're getting into and whether it's something that you want to do.

And if you want to do it, what kind of model you want to take.

My apologies, John and I were going to do this together.

Our farm is named Bountiful Blessings Farm.

If I ever was going to, if there's another name that I'd like to have for my farm, it's Better Together.

Back to Menu

Series

Institutional Farming

Interns, U-turns and Returns

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Attachments

Business & Ministry

Hosting Interns

1h 5m

Special Interests

The Sabbatical – Binding Burden or Bountiful Blessing?

56m

Market Gardening

02 Meet the Farmer: John & Pam Dysinger, Bountiful Blessings Farm

1h 14m

True Education

Acquainting Agriculture High School: Grow to Know Him

1h 2m

Roundtable

Successful Marketing, Planning for Profitability

1h 43m

Plenary

History of Agriculture in Adventism- Part 1

1h 24m

Creation, Agriculture, and Evangelism

5. How to Do Small Scale Farming

42m

Session 2

Academy Gardens: What’s Working?

1h 2m

Sound Doctrine