Thank you for considering being a FARMS Mentor, and sharing your experiences with us!

What is a FARMS mentor?

You are peer support for the Transitioning producers who are grappling with the challenges of implementing soil health in your region. You will be paid to visit mentee farms and to support them on phone/email/text/social media. You’ll look at the exciting practices they are implementing, learn the good and bad they are experiencing, and support them in their soil health goals. We will cover your mileage, per diem, and pay you hourly to visit with your likeminded neighbors and talk about bold and innovating ways to build soil health.

You are likely the most experienced soil health practitioner in your hub. This means that you’ve probably seen lots of successes and lots of failures, and you’ve been able to work through any failures and keep going. This is incredibly valuable information for your mentees. As a mentor, we hope you share with them your successes and failures, and why you think those practices succeeded or failed.

You’ll get mentorship training each year, details TBD. You’ll also get support from our team of TA’s, Storm Casper, Ray Ward, Mark Watson, and Greg Scott, and we can connect you with resources at CSU or KSU. You can also help support each other, if you’d like us to coordinate conference calls or field days between mentors.

What is a mentor NOT?

• You aren’t responsible for proscribing practices or performing the duties of an agronomist
• You aren’t liable for anything, including if your mentees have unsuccessful experiments  
• You aren’t expected to have all the answers, but we hope you’ve got some good questions!
• You aren’t there to tell anyone what to do, or to diagnose any issues on your mentee’s land.
• You aren’t responsible for the Comprehensive Soil Health Management Plans of your mentees – neither the content, nor meeting any deadlines. But please help them out if they get stuck and need someone to bounce ideas off of.

What compensation do mentors receive?

• Salary for supporting your mentees (we’ve budgeted 12 days per year, split between your 3 mentees)
• Mileage reimbursement
• Per-diem travel

What else is different for mentors?

We’ll be doing some extra testing on your land, to see how longer-term regenerative compares to conventional. This includes:

• Nutrient density testing – we’ll be testing your grain or pulse for the density of mineral nutrients. Health First will coordinate getting a grab sample of your grain as it’s being harvested, and we’ll test it at Rhizoterra Inc in Spokane, WA.
• Deeper dive into your economics – we’ll be collecting more data and going deeper into the economics of your soil health practices.