1. Who works on NOFA organic farms?
Becca Berkey
PhD Candidate, Antioch University New England

2. The Survey
Tool (Survey Gizmo)
Creation
Distribution

3. Prioritizing Areas for Analysis
Alignment with Research Questions
market for organic products, pay for workers, housing, and policies
feedback about the types of membership & benefits
farmers’ values and practices
Prioritizing with NOFA’s Interstate Council

4. Methods of Analysis
Excel & SPSS
Thematic Coding of Qualitative Data

5. Response Rates

6. % Respondents Based on Farms in State

7. Types of Workers on Farms

8. Workers by Type, Raw Numbers- Paid

9. Workers by Type, Raw Numbers- Unpaid

10. % of Workers in 1st Year on Farm

11. Pay
Mean, Median, and Mode of Lowest & Highest Paid Workers, Hourly Rate; N = 124 for lowest paid (Standard Deviation 2.84), N = 118 for highest paid (Standard Deviation 4.62)

12. Benefits by Type to Benefits-Eligible Workers

13. Retention Converted to Categorical Data
Farms categorized as:
Low Retention (if more than 31% of their workers were in their first year on the farm)
Medium Retention (11-30% of workers in their first year on the farm)
High Retention (less than 10% of workers in their first year on the farm)

14. ANOVA- Wage & Retention
No statistically significant relationship found between lower- paying jobs & retention
Highest Paying Farms + Retention

15. Looking Closer. . . 3 = Low 2 = Medium 1 = High
The statistically significant relationship here indicates that medium retention farms are paying an average of $2.65/hour more than high retention farms.

16. ANOVA- Benefits & Retention

17. Looking Closer. . . 3 = Low 2 = Medium 1 = High
Here there are several significant relationships where medium retention farms again offer on average 1.79 more benefits than high retention farms, and in addition offer 1.27 more benefits on average than low retention farms.

18. Unemployment Insurance

19. Unemployment Insurance by State- NH, NY, and ME

20. Labor challenges in retaining a stable workforce
Emergent Themes
money constraints, pay, and wages
housing
the availability of reliable, experienced, and qualified workers
the seasonality of the work
problems with H2A, tax, and insurance paperwork

21. Supports & constraints in enacting values
NOFA & MOFGA
Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) and local markets
customers and consumers
other grants, organizations, and workshops
off-farm income
family
Constraints
money, costs, and finances
government and regulations (both federal and local)
capital and costs of inputs (labor, seeds, irrigation, soil)
getting a premium in the market and consumer knowledge of the product
lack of infrastructure and inability to secure grant funding
time

22. What does other research tell us and how does this data compare?
The National Agricultural Workers Survey (NAWS)- data collected (looking at poverty among farmworkers)
United States Department of Agriculture’s Census of Agriculture, 2007 (covers types of agriculture and information about operators)