FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Purposes are actually open for a brand new cohort of farmer-researchers to obtain technical help in conducting progressive on-farm analysis trials throughout the nation
SANTA CRUZ, Calif., Oct. 15, 2025 — The Natural Farming Analysis Basis (OFRF) is happy to announce that functions are open for the following cohort of natural farmers who might be main on-farm analysis trials with OFRF technical help in 2026.
OFRF’s Farmer-Led Trials (FLT) Program supplies technical help and a small quantity of funding to a choose cohort of natural and transitioning-to-organic growers annually. Constructed within the spirit of curiosity and collaboration, the FLT program supplies help to farmers in order that they’ll strive new practices, inputs, varieties, or animal breeds that may enhance profitability and environmental sustainability. Purposes are open October fifteenth by December third, 2025. Chosen individuals might be introduced in early 2026.
“By partnering with OFRF, we get to create a mission that may assist us decide the easiest cowl crops to unravel a few of our soil well being points. We get professional recommendation and suggestions by all levels of the mission, from planning, implementing, knowledge assortment, and decoding outcomes,” Tim Colby, farmer at Colby Farms in Papillion, Nebraska, and former participant in OFRF’s FLT Program.
Natural farming takes an excessive amount of dedication, monetary funding, and steady trial and error to adapt to an array of challenges, together with pests, illnesses, soil administration, and local weather change. To deal with the particular challenges that licensed natural and transitioning-to-organic growers face, it’s important that farmers are on the heart of efforts to determine issues and trial options. The FLT program helps farmers in growing a viable trial plan, supplies help and accountability in knowledge assortment, after which helps farmers compile and assess outcomes on the finish of the trial. This equips farmers to not solely implement the findings into their very own farm practices but additionally to share the expertise and data gained with different producers.
“There isn’t any restrict to the fascinating questions and considerate concerns that come up from natural farmers throughout the nation. Our work at OFRF is to assist deliver the scope of the trial to an achievable degree, grounded within the scientific technique. With the outcomes of every trial, farmers could make a small, correct assertion about what happened on their farm. Every assertion is sort of a brick, including one piece at a time to construct the inspiration of our understanding,” Mary Hathaway, OFRF Analysis & Training Program Supervisor.
To study extra or apply for OFRF’s Farmer-Led Trials Program, please go to our program web page for updates and to learn testimonials from earlier cohorts. Moreover, we encourage curious farmers to contemplate attending the FLT Digital Discussion board on Oct twenty first, the place three FLT farmers will share outcomes of their trials, and to take a look at OFRF’s free guidebook, Farmers’ Information to Conducting On-Farm Analysis, for steerage on structuring your farm experiments so the outcomes are helpful, dependable, and repeatable.
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About Natural Farming Analysis Basis
The Natural Farming Analysis Basis (OFRF), headquartered in Santa Cruz, California, with a distant crew primarily based throughout the U.S., works to foster the advance and widespread adoption of natural farming techniques. OFRF cultivates natural analysis, training, and federal insurance policies that deliver extra farmers and acreage into natural manufacturing. For extra details about OFRF, please go to our web site: www.ofrf.org.
Media Contact:
Ashley Dulaney, Communications Director, OFRF
ashley@ofrf.orf, (518) 310-6771
P.O. Field 440, Santa Cruz, CA 95061
