Sprout city farms' proposed agrivoltaic incubator project is an extension of our educational mission to support beginning farmers in entering the challenging small-scale specialty crop farming…

Sprout city farms' proposed agrivoltaic incubator project is an extension of our educational mission to support beginning farmers in entering the challenging small-scale specialty crop farming industry in colorado. For the past decade, we have heard from our farmer training participants that more support is needed for them to advance from farm worker to farm owner. The goal of the project is to build a strong foundation for an incubator program that provides access to land and essential business and agricultural skills training, in a novel practice CO-locating solar energy and food production ("agrivoltaics"), to enhance the success of new farm businesses and train them in a new source of revenue generation. The target audience is beginning farmers with limited access to land, especially black, indigenous, and people of color (bipoc) and low-income farmers, who are interested in furthering their skills in small-scale, sustainable crop production in preparation for owning their ownbusiness. Sprout city farms will collaborate with colorado state university's (CSU) building farmers program, flatirons young farmers coalition, and the incubator farm at fort lewis college (FLC), in addition to our on-site partners which include CSU, university of arizona, national renewable energy laboratory, and colorado agrivoltaic learning center. Alongside our partners, sprout city farms will do significant research and outreach to understand the landscape of farmer training programs across colorado's front range; build the infrastructure at jack's solar farm, our newest site in longmont, CO where we are producing food organically underneath solar panels; and create a responsive curriculum and toolkit for the agrivoltaic incubator program, as we are trailblazing agrivoltaics with the construction of the largest agrivoltaics site for specialty crop production in the united states.