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2010- Tobacco Communities Reinvestment Fund Community Application-Central Region Please try to answer the questions in the space provided. You may attach additional pages as necessary,. but please limit your total application packet to 17 pages. Be sure to type or print clearly., Please, read the Guidelines and the Producer Grant Evaluation Worksheet before completing this form. If you need further information, contact RAFI-USA @ 919-542-1396, ext 205 or 919-259-4101. 1. Briefly describe your project. The goal of this project is to enhance the capacity of a proven new farmer training program to provide improved educational opportunities that improve entrepreneurship for new farmers. This project will enable new and diversifying farmers in tobacco-dependent, economically distressed, and rural communities in a core 6-county area of the Piedmont Region of North Carolina to pilot and develop new or alternative farm-based enterprises. In addition, through periodic workshops and on-farm tours, farmers from a wider radius from the Hurdle Mills site would also- benefit from activities funded by this project. This larger 14-county region includes 9,890 farms, representing ~20 percent of NC farms and 35,210 -firmer or current tobacco acres, equivalent to 21 % of NC tobacco acreage. The PLANT @ Breeze Farm Enterprise workshop series consists of intensive 3-hour sessions held each Wednesday night for eight weeks in January and February. Local successful farmers are present at each workshop and share their diverse experiences related to that evening's topic. Following the workshop series, participants can- submit a business plan-and crop plan for review input by their peers. New farmers with adequate business plans can lease growing area on an annual basis at the Breeze Farm for horticultural or livestock production. A recent collaboration with Natural Resources Conservation Service for a demonstration site on rotational grazing with fencing and livestock watering improvements will now allow grazing livestock apprentice farmers to participate in the PLANT program. Currently, the program includes a high_level of diversity among its participants and apprentice farmers, and has been referred to as a `government program that works'. This project will also enhance the capacity of the farm incubator to serve new innovative farmers by increasing available water for irrigation with the purchase of equipment dedicated to the farm incubator project. In addition, a portion of the request will support a mentor farmer to assist with activities of the PLANT program to better serve apprentice #armers and workshop participants. Program offerings will be disseminated through the Cooperative Extension network, and local and regional- grower listservs. 2.What is your goal for the project? If you are successful, how will the project contribute to keeping farmers sustainably employed on the farm? The PLANT @ Breeze Farm Enterprise Incubator will use funds provided by this project to enhance the capacity of the program to serve diversifying and new farmers. Of greatest importance is increasing water availability through the creation of a new well or pond that will allow for development of new and desperately needed, incubator growing plots. In addition, funds are requested for cost-sharing on the purchase a 35-hp tractor and other specialized equipment for the exclusive use of the PLANT Farm Enterprise Incubator. During the past Page 6 of I9