Meeting & Agendas

10 minute introductions for: • Sue Beckwith • Rob Cunningham • Pati Jacobs • Matthew Olson • Becky Hume – new member (offering an internship for an Agriculture Science graduate) • James Rodriguez • Edwin Marty • Nicole Wagner • Finegan Ferreboeuf

• Growing the farm: new master bee keeper added; 19-hour position retained; new intern added to crew. Celebrating a one-year anniversary of the farm crew. o Savannah – Miranda, Trent, and Valerie were all part of the Ag Sustainable program • 1st bee hive inspection • “Market” name is being changed to a “farm stand” so that people aren’t looking for additional vendors • Total sales $3702.40 to-date (made from the two farm stands at Elgin & Highland); including purchases from the culinary arts department. • Monies made from farm stand are an added revenue that helped to retain one farm crew staff • Now keeping books for the farm. This allows interns and crew to learn the business side; also wants to increase the accounting/revenue side of the program. • Square revenue account created for all revenue • Displaying and setting up the tent at Highland has been a good experience and learning opportunity. o Sue – As part of the program are students doing a social media platform to promote the farm stands? Want to get the ACC marketing community onboard to help with some of the marketing for the farm. Want the social media to have the handles for everyone on the committee and the committee be tagged in social media posts. o Savannah – explained the lab assistant posting to social media. Great suggestion to have the committee added in the tags o Matthew – the marketing team has come out to take photos and videos of the farm. It’s on the ACC Facebook page. • Continued donations to Elgin community Cupboard • Collaborations with dr. Gayle Bayeta (professor in graphic design department) – creating signs and graphic designs will become part of this professor’s class. o Savannah – they are going to do market research and connect with those in line and the farm crew to get more marketing tools to use. • Collaborations with culinary schools and music department o Sue – culinary school produce received from the farm… will there be some kind of in-kind or reimbursement for the food? Want to keep track of what is going into the culinary school so that ag can determine what portion of what is used by culinary school so that you know what is part of the revenue stream. • Yes, they have purchased any produce received from the farm through interdepartmental process. They keep invoice records using an excel spreadsheet. • Committed to transparency and is willing to show the records • Music – trying to provide live music at the highland farm stand. It did not happen in the winter but will hopefully transpire in the spring. Things are being worked out with this collaboration. • Moving forward – high tunnel is being constructed; orchard pruning; market expanding; cover crop incubator; re-queen bees; breeding sheep; collaborate with Veteran Services and Food Distribution. • These collaborations have come from the efforts of having the farm stand at Highland. o Sue – very pleased with what Matthew is doing and very impressed; has everything tight and doing well with what you are doing. • The farm gate is open to anyone who would like to come by and visit. o Patti – middle school farm tour and revenue stream for the farm.

• Final document with suggestions included. This information is in the PDF that was sent. • Want to focus on the curriculum. Thanks, Edwin, for guidance on the policy board. • The room she will walk into does not have the background of the committee and want to be sure everything related to a policy and procedure is correct. • Continuous review of the curriculum details (policy, mission, procedures, etc.) • Discussion of the email thread – the edits that were done by Edwin and Sue. o Becky – insightful and good intentions all around but there are breakdowns so the insight is valuable – making it open to farms would be great o Pattie – how much time in the marking class do you see distribution being a part of? • Display and share a diagram of what she uses in her marketing class and uses a textbook that is used by Texas State’s marketing class. Can be transferred to a 4-year institution. Based on direct marketing; marketing basics, CSA, etc. o Sue – agree with the others and selling to the institutional markets is much more than marketing. Having a different course, because it is not about marketing, would be the best route to take. It’s everything from food packaging to safety o Pattie – asked Edwin what is much more aware of what institutions are requiring. o Edwin – explained the difficulties of what he’s most familiar with; understanding cost benefits was a challenge for him when he was trying to break it down. • Continuous discussions about what is required, expected, and protocols of what is needed for this course. • The importance of breaking down the learning, curriculums, courses, etc. of what is needed for a student to be successful in their learning. (Marketing vs. accounting - cost analysis) • Can a research project be made for this as a research project? • Find someone to talk to the class… • Lots of input and feedback from the committee regarding the degree plan Text skills – to be covered more in future courses

• Lengthy discussions and reviewing of syllabi • Is there a rain water collection system on campus

• Detailed discussion of how to develop a cooperative incubator space; will be working with farm share (closely working with Pati on this). • Using ACC as a financial cushion (because incubators can’t be sustained because they are grant funded or non-profits) o Pati – looking at a profit-sharing model opportunity; where ranchers who have land but don’t have anyone who wants to go on with the ranch. Share as part of the partnership and students who are interest in a partnership. Example an older lady who has the farm space but is not able to complete the venture she set forth; use this space so that she can make some money and expand an opportunity; if it’s not used in agriculture, it will eventually turn into subdivisions or commercial properties; let’s keep it as farm land. • Needs to put in place a process for incubators and secure something for the future of the program and students. Protocols need to be put in place regarding what an incubator does so that… • Opportunities to get to networking and getting involved are areas that is being sought.

• Need to wait until after the completion of spring 2023 session. • Putting something on the calendar in advance so that others can make adjustments to their calendars. The week of May 14-19th is a suggested time and an email will go out to put something on the calendars. Meeting adjourned at 1:35:34