Farmer
Training
Program 2025
Sustainable, Small Farm Incubator Program
A BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM
FOR NEW + BEGINNING FARMERS IN LOUISIANA
Applications for the 2025 cohorts
are now open from
February 14th - March 11th
Meet our speakers!
Angie Comeaux will lead the May 1st Session: Rematriating Landbased Wisdom: Climate Smart Louisiana Farming.
Angie Comeaux is of Mvskoke, Cherokee, Chahta, and French Creole descent born and raised in South Louisiana, currently living and farming in south Alabama, in her ancestral Mvskoke homelands. She is a founding member of both Bvlbancha Collective and Okla Hina Ikhish Holo, two Indigenous Southeastern femme and non-binary collectives working in mutual aid, medicine and food sovereignty, and rebuilding ancestral trade routes. She is the Southeastern Technical Assistance Specialist with the Intertribal Agriculture Council. Angie is a seed grower for the Ujamaa Cooperative Farming Alliance and a student in the inaugural cohort of the Ira Wallace Seed School. Angie is also a 2022-2023 fellow with the Soul Fire Farm Braiding Seeds fellowship. And in 2023 Angie completed Clinical Herbal Practitioner school with the Appalachian Center for Natural Health and 4th year of herbal medicine courses.
Most importantly, Angie is the founder of Hvrvnrvcukwv Ueki-honecv (Hummingbird Springs) Farm, a fallow 120-year-old peanut farm that she, her partner, and community are transitioning into an Indigenous food forest. Between 2022-2023, Angie and her community planted over 2,000 native trees at Hvrvnrvcukwv Ueki-honecv Farm. They are also stewarding ruminants, poultry, equine, and a huge range of native and culturally significant plants. The goal at Hvrvnrvcukwv Ueki-honecv Farm is to fully reclaim and resurrect Indigenous agricultural practices that have been sleeping and to welcome those practices back to their homelands. The mission of Hvrvnrvcukwv Ueki-honecv is to show what Indigenous sovereignty truly looks like, to be a living example of what prioritizing community care and the needs of the land can achieve, to show that when we listen to the land and the land's original stewards we can not only heal our communities but thrive. Angie feels that it is necessary that we bring the songs, the language, and our lifeways back home. It is vital that we build our future in right relationship with the land and with one another.
Billy Mitchell will lead the April 3rd Session: What Farm Food Safety Plan?
Billy Mitchell is an Education and Training Specialist for Produce Safety with the University of Florida based out of Gainesville. In his role, he works with Extension and other partners across Florida to provide technical assistance, education, and training.
He loves composting, riding bikes, hands-on-learning, and playing Risky or Not. His goal with food safety education is to support as they increase produce quality, decrease produce safety risk, and build economically, environmentally, and socially sustainable farming communities.
Nicole Johnson will co-lead the May 29th Session: Growing for Multiple Income Streams, The Buyers Perspectives. Nicole is also the Facilitator for the Lafayette-based Cohort.
Nicole Ryane Johnson is a homeschooling mom, farmer, and community leader based in Lafayette, Louisiana. Together with her life and business partner, Trey, Nicole homesteads and runs L4S Farms, where they grow medicinal herbs, mainly ginger and various types of turmeric, using sustainable farming practices. She is also the co-founder of Fightingville Fresh Market, a twice-weekly neighborhood farmers market in downtown Lafayette that brings fresh, local food to an underserved community while supporting small-scale growers.
In addition to farming, Nicole owns CPR 2 Geaux, an emergency medical and safety training company that provides life-saving skills to businesses and individuals across Louisiana. She is passionate about empowering her community through self-sufficiency and fostering connections between local food, health, and sustainability.
Nicole is a Business Management and Marketing graduate of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, a recent graduate of Leadership Lafayette (#SoSoLit36), and an alumna of the Louisiana Food Fellow program. She serves on the board of the Acadiana Food Alliance (AFA), a regional organization supporting food and farming initiatives; the steering committee of the Louisiana Small Scale Agriculture Coalition (LSSAC), a statewide coalition strengthening small-scale agriculture; and the board of TownFolk, a nonprofit improving quality of life for residents and businesses in the historic LaPlace neighborhood of Lafayette.
Through her work with these organizations, Nicole is dedicated to building stronger, more sustainable food systems while fostering collaboration, resilience, and community pride. By integrating family, farming, and entrepreneurship, she seeks to inspire others to connect with their food, their community, and the land, showing that resilient food systems and thriving communities grow from deeply rooted connections and collaboration.
Margee Green will lead the April 17th Session: Your Farm Profit as Local Food Policy.
Marguerite Green is the Executive Director of Louisiana Food Policy Action Council (FPAC). Green works in education and local food systems to create change and transfer power. In 2007 Green started working in agricultural education while receiving a degree in Agriculture at Louisiana State University. In 2008 with a diverse coalition of young people, neighbors, and friends Marguerite co-founded The South Garden Project. The South Garden Project is a grassroots community organization building gardens in one of Baton Rouge’s most marginalized neighborhoods. The model for the organization was to lend material and organize support to new gardens while providing a weekly gathering space for children to learn to grow food in a food desert. The program successfully transferred all leadership to residents by 2011 and became a neighbor-run network of community gardens with access to unified resources and training.
In 2011 Marguerite moved back to her home of New Orleans and began working in farming and gardening efforts across the city, running a farm, organizing with farmers on issues of land access, food sovereignty, and blight. In 2012 Green was selected to conceive and implement a half-acre state-of-the-art teaching farm for the students of The New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA) by the school's Non-profit partner The NOCCA Institute. In her time conceiving and running the farm, dubbed Press Street Gardens, Green created a robust space filled with community and student programming, as well as a food production hub where students could see and participate in land stewardship and farming in action. In 2017 Margee left the full-time managerial position of Press Street Gardens to focus on the classroom aspect of agriculture, food culture, and food justice for the students of NOCCA.
This shift towards the classroom allowed for Green to become a full-time Co-Coordinator and eventually director of SPROUT. The goal of SPROUT is to build a food system where fresh, nutrient-dense food is affordable and accessible to all citizens as consumers, but also as producers. Marguerite held a leadership role in the National Young Farmers Coalition New Orleans Chapter as well as being a founder of the Greater New Orleans Growers Alliance, an effort to collectivize New Orleans farmers and make the possibility of farming in our city a more realistic and viable livelihood for all people. Green also sits on the city Food Policy and Advisory Committee. Marguerite’s personal and professional passion is empowering people to grow food as a way to heal and support themselves as well as strengthen a community-based food system. Green sits on the USDA’s NAREE board and Specialty Crop Committee.
Marguerite is herself, a farmer running a one-acre diversified flower and vegetable farm since 2011 called Fat River Farms.
August Green will lead the June 12th Session: Seed Saving for Unique Market Goals.
Augustus Green is an urban farmer and environmental educator based in New Orleans, LA. He has a passion for Southern adapted produce varieties and edible natives and has taken on leadership as the coordinator for the burgeoning Louisiana Heritage Seed Program. He descends from a long line of agricultural laborers from St. James and Ascension parishes, and hopes to prepare this next generation of farmers with locally produced amendments, starts, and seed.
Stacy Hall will lead the May 15th Session: Marketing through Storytelling.
Born on Bayou Terrebonne and reared in southern Mississippi, Stacy Hall has a serious passion for food and its key pathway to connectedness. It took moving to NYC to work in fashion and stumbling upon the Greenmarket brimming with new-to-her fruits, vegetables, and herbs to connect Stacy back to her ancestral rural farming roots she had long tried to escape. While in New York City, Stacy’s work in kitchens led by Michelin-starred chefs, Dan Barber and Eric Ripert, further shaped her views on food waste, locality, and honoring our growers.
Stacy has five seasons of regenerative sustainable farming work under her belt with a focus on rotationally grazed livestock and is also trained as a butcher and charcutier. She has consulted on numerous culinary projects and opened multiple restaurants and specialty grocery stores in the Northeast and down South. Stacy holds BS degrees in Marketing and Fashion Merchandising and Design.
Currently, Stacy serves as the Director of Markets and Vendor Support at Market Umbrella/Crescent City Farmers Market in New Orleans, a role she has held for two years. A champion of connecting local resources and opportunities to build a thriving community, she is excited to reconnect with her roots, nourish people, and share her enthusiasm for eating well.
When not advocating for equitable and just food systems, you can find Stacy antiquing at flea markets and estate sales, playing in the woods, working on fiber arts projects, porch sitting with pals, or puttering in her home kitchen and garden. She hopes to see you at the market!
Ariel Pressman will co-lead the May 29th Session: Growing for Multiple Income Streams, The Buyers Perspectives.
Whole Farm Strategies principal consultants - Ariel Pressman and Jessica Roberts - met while building and managing Real Organic Project’s farmer led add-on certification. Together, we grew the program from 60 farms to the 1100+ it certifies today, while also building the evaluation structure of the program. Along the way we honed our skills in developing and managing complex, multi-stakeholder projects and farm level data collection. We take pride in our extensive national network of organic farms, from boutique to large scale, that operate across every category of production.
Ariel owned and operated Seed to Seed Farm for seven years - selling his 15 acres of certified organic crops exclusively to large scale wholesale buyers. During his farming career Ariel developed a number of niche crops into large-scale profitable markets while also opening several major wholesale accounts that hadn’t previously worked with local organic farms. Ariel has created and conducted a number of training courses and workshops helping farmers develop farm management, marketing and outreach strategies to profitably service wholesale markets. In his role as the Director of Certification at Real Organic Project, Ariel worked closely with a diverse array of 1100+ certified organic farms across the country, conducting over 300 in person farm visits. He managed the growth and development of the program from scratch - building out applications and evaluation criteria along with farmer communications and account management strategies. This experience led him to an in-depth understanding of sustainable produce, protein and grain production practices around the country.
Gary Perkins will lead the June 26th Session: Think Like an Entrepreneur to Make Your Cash Flow.
Gary Perkins has been a small business owner since 1978. He worked in the restaurant industry while attending LSU, graduating with a BS in Microbiology in 1978. He bought his first restaurant, Louie’s Café, the same year. Gary Perkins has continued to be a serial entrepreneur, focusing on the restaurant industry, real estate, and healthcare. He is the co-founder of Wildwood Pizza, named by TripAdvisor as the 2019 #1 rated Pizza Restaurant in the state of Louisiana. He was named the Red River Bank Entrepreneur of the Year at the 2019 Chamber Bizzy Awards. Gary serves on the Board of the Central Louisiana Homeless Coalition. He has been involved in starting philanthropic athletic events including the Indian Creek Triathalon, Red River Run, Wild Azalea Challenge, Spirits-Lee Jay’s 5k, and the co-founding of Rapides Junior Runners.
In 2006, started business coaching with the Entrepreneurship Initiative launched by The Rapides Foundation. Gary transitioned from coach to Executive Director in 2008. The Entrepreneurship Initiative uses a multi-faceted approach that includes coaching, expert technical assistance, and classroom and web-based instruction to deliver the right content at the right time. Since 2011, The Business Acceleration System has worked with over 470 business owners, and that group has increased its revenues by $225 million and created 1382 jobs, with out-of-region sales in excess of $500 million.
His hobbies include working nights and weekends, earning money, and furthering the endless number of initiatives imagined by Louisiana Central.
Bahia Nightingale is the Alexandria cohort facilitator.
Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Utah, Nebraska, Iowa, Texas, and Louisiana. If you can’t think of anything to talk about… ask me how many times I’ve moved. Be prepared to hear me talk about why after more than 30 moves in 29 years I’ve finally bought a house and settled down in rural Central Louisiana.
Bahia has worked as an outdoor guide, a resource management technician, community organizing and outreach specialist, federal law enforcement officer, a small-business consultant, community development manager, grant manager, and most importantly, as a farmer.
Ms. Nightengale has presented on rural issues at The White House, participated in national policy work to address issues related to homelessness, and successfully grown a winter tomato in Iowa. Bahia enjoys cooking, crocheting, hiking, kayaking, shooting, supporting the American Arts & Crafts movement, and bonfires. She really wants to take you kayaking.
Lauren Jones is the Shreveport cohort Facilitator.
Lauren Jones serves as the Executive Director of Shreveport Green, offering a decade of experience in community-based farming and environmental initiatives across Shreveport, Louisiana. In 2019, she spearheaded the creation of the Shreveport Green Urban Farm on historic Sprague Street, aiming to tackle food system disparities from a perspective of justice and sustainability.
Lauren's work focuses on promoting equity in environmental & food systems that have been systemically marginalized. She strives to build resilience in communities by fostering local collaboration and inspiring a profound respect for the environment. Her comprehensive expertise spans program development, volunteer management, regenerative farming, grant writing, public speaking, environmental activism, and therapeutic horticulture.