MSU Organic Farmer Training expands to Grand Rapids, adding to program's learning community in Detroit and East Lansing
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EmailSign up for the 2026 Organic Farming Training Program to visit over 20 farms, hear from over 20 guest speakers and learn from a like-minded community of farmers, educational gardeners, farmworkers and food system changemakers.
Sign up now for Michigan State University's (MSU) 2026 Organic Farmer Training Program (OFTP) in Detroit, East Lansing or Grand Rapids, Michigan, to make your farm dreams a reality! There is no better way to learn how to farm than to dig in and learn on the farm. You'll choose either Keep Growing Detroit, the MSU Student Organic Farm in East Lansing or New City Urban Farm in Grand Rapids (a new location for 2026) as your hands-on learning site to plant, tend and harvest crops on a successful farm.
In addition to these hands-on learning days, new farmers from all three sites will join together for field trips to over 20 farms and interactive online sessions with guest speakers, breakout rooms and the chance to brainstorm their farm plans. This learning community of new growers is a great resource, as explained by two 2025 OFTP participants:
“There has been so much support from my fellow farm classmates throughout this journey. Everyone brings different strengths and experiences, and we’re constantly learning from each other. From helping me identify pests, to sharing tools and tips, to simply offering encouragement when things didn’t go as planned—the support has been amazing." 2025 OFTP participant Vantina Jenkins
“I’m so grateful that I have the OFTP community as such a deeply moving and incredibly resource rich space to grow in. I never would have guessed I’d hear such inspiring stories, dreams, and goals from my peers ... I have been exposed to an abundance of ideas, visions, and experiences that I could never have gotten from a trip to the library or from navigating online resources on my own." 2025 OFTP participant Chrysanthe Patselas
The group will meet on Mondays from Feb. 23 to Nov. 9, 2026, to learn about sustainable farming as each new farmer crafts a plan for their farm vision. Apply now to join the 2026 MSU Organic Farmer Training Program to learn alongside urban farmers, homesteaders, farmworkers, educational gardeners and food system changemakers.
Learn the art of farming at one of three fantastic farms
You’ll have at least one day at each of the following farms, but you’ll choose one site for most of your hands-on learning.
Keep Growing Detroit is a model urban farm that grows and distributes transplants to 2,200 gardens and farms in Detroit, Highland Park and Hamtramck through the Garden Resource Program. Keep Growing Detroit also offers workshops for gardeners and farmers, soil testing for lead, assistance with applying for hoophouses through the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and much more.
Detroit-area farmers at this site will learn from Keep Growing Detroit farmers Rosebud Schneider, Kido Pielack, Molly Hubbell and Angela Lugo-Thomas. Choose this site if you are a Detroit or southeast Michigan farmer interested in urban farming and farming at the micro-scale. Keep Growing Detroit began hosting OFTP in 2023.
The MSU Student Organic Farm in East Lansing is a 15-acre campus farm focused on growing confident, capable college students while also growing vegetables, herbs and fruits. The farm grows vegetables in the field with tractor power, in the hoophouses with human power and grows fruits in the Edible Forest Garden with the power of permaculture.
East Lansing OFTP participants learn from OFTP coordinator Katie Brandt and Student Organic Farm manager Darby Anderson. This is a great learning site for production farmers, anyone planning for over 2 acres of vegetables, permaculturists and those able to drive to East Lansing nine times over the growing season. The MSU Student Organic Farm has hosted various versions of the OFTP since 2006.
New City Urban Farm in Grand Rapids has three farm sites, including a farm and café on Leonard Street and a new 5-acre site on Ball Avenue on Grand Rapids’ northeast side. They also grow on land at the Allendale Grand Valley State University Sustainable Agriculture Project farm. New City is a productive community supported agriculture farm that is focused on training youth and young adults through internships and apprenticeships that build up to the opportunity to manage your own field and hoophouse at their new incubator farm.
This is a great site for urban and rural farmers in west Michigan. New City will host OFTP for the first time in 2026.
Field trips are a highlight of the Organic Farmer Training Program
Farm tours at over 20 sustainable farms in Michigan and Chicago will give you dozens of examples of what to grow, how to raise and market it, how to manage hoophouses, design farm infrastructure, choose tools, make business decisions and much more. Here are some of the farms we might visit on each of our trips:
- Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti: Visit a mix of urban and rural farms, including farms like Green Things Farm Collective (no-till veggies and flowers), Growing Hope (model urban gardens) and We the People Opportunity Farm (healing and learning space for returning citizens from incarceration).
- Detroit: Visit urban farms that work with youth and the community to build food sovereignty and confront racism in the food and farm system. These efforts take place through non-profit farms, schoolyard gardens, art and food forests including Drew Farm, Oakland Avenue Farm, D-Town Farm Beaverland Farm and the Detroit Partnership for Food Learning and Innovation.
- Three-day trip to Chicago: Stay in shared cabins and campsites at Camp Bullfrog Lake located 30 minutes from downtown Chicago. We’ll visit great non-profit farms and schoolyard gardens like Windy City Harvest, Gardeneers, Chicago Lights Farm, Garfield Park Conservatory and more.
- Lansing: Learn from the farmers at a native plant nursery, an urban farm, a children’s garden and a grass-based dairy farm.
- Grand Rapids: We often visit Green Wagon Farm, New City Urban Farm and an apple orchard.
- Flint: For our final tour, we visit an apple orchard, a cut flower farm in the city, a grocery store owned by urban farmers, a farm that brews their own fertilizers and a school farm.
Make a plan for your farm, educational garden or homestead
Throughout the program, you will take what you're learning and apply it to your own farm vision by writing parts of your farm plan for a community farm, a farm business or a homestead farm. We start by brainstorming values and goals during the first class. Then, everyone has a week to complete their values and goals assignment before sharing and discussing what they turned in with a peer the following week.
We repeat this process of brainstorming and class discussions followed by an assignment for all the sections of the farm plan, including: 1) values and goals; 2) soil management plan; 3) site plan; 4) crop and production plan; 5) outreach plan (marketing, engagement or self-sufficiency, depending on the farm type); 6) labor plan; 7) startup budget and resource list; 8) financial plan/sustainability plan; 9) farm plan; and 10) the final farm plan presentations.
You’ll hear short vision sharing presentations each online class day, but at the end of the program it is so beautiful to hear everyone’s farm plan presentations! These are often such moving visions for how a farm can create positive change for their communities.
Why take the Organic Farmer Training Program? Graduates say it best!
“I am thoroughly enjoying and appreciating being a part of OFTP this year. It has given me a lot of insight into farming as a business and on a larger scale. The resources that are shared are invaluable. The guest speakers have given a lot of insight to how they run their operations…The cohorts in this year’s class are very diverse and I have learned so much already. The connections are and will be so beneficial even after the class is over.” 2024 OFTP Graduate Nan’Chang Thompson-Springer of Urban Bush Sistahs farm in Detroit
“The best thing about starting my farm while taking the OFTP is that I have been able to take the things I am learning and put them into practice. I have learned a lot about myself and what I want for myself and my farm by attending the farm visits. My favorite part is learning from my cohort. We all glean different things and it's great to be able to hear other perspectives about the information we are all taking in.” 2023 Graduate Jenny Balmes
“This is an extraordinary program. It’s as good or better than much more expensive intensive training, such as the Stanford Executive Program. I built and managed my first hoophouse and made my first sale to a local restaurant during the 2019 OFTP. This would not have been possible but for your program.” 2019 Graduate Bill Coughlin, Twin Manor Farm
How to apply
This is your chance to make your farm dreams a reality! To join this learning community, please send the following:
- OFTP application form
- Your resume or CV
- Two letters of recommendation from employers, colleagues, farmers you’ve worked or volunteered for, farm customers, etc.
- Visit the farm or meet online. Contact oftp@msu.edu to schedule a time.
- Optional: Scholarship application and financial need form for one of the following OFTP scholarships:
- Detroit Farmers Scholarship for farmers from Detroit/Hamtramck/Highland Park
- West Michigan Farmers Scholarship for farmers at the Grand Rapids learning site (details coming soon)
- Transition to Organic Scholarship for farmers committed to transitioning their farm to organic
Email scans/photos of documents and questions to oftp@msu.edu.
Scholarships bring together farmers of all backgrounds
Apply for one of three scholarships to make the OFTP a financial reality for everyone interested in starting a farm.
The Detroit Farmers Scholarship of up to $3,000 will reduce the total program cost to $900 for farmers, educational gardeners and homesteaders in Detroit, Highland Park and Hamtramck. These farmers will have Keep Growing Detroit as their base for hands-on learning.
The Transition to Organic Farmer Scholarship will support three farmers who are transitioning their farm to certified organic to take the OFTP. This scholarship is funded by the USDA Transition to Organic Partnership Program (TOPP) and can be used for the Detroit, Grand Rapids or East Lansing learning sites. These scholarships are for current TOPP mentees or people interested in connecting with a TOPP mentor.
A new scholarship for west Michigan farmers will help growers who want to learn at our new OFTP learning site at New City Urban Farm in Grand Rapids. Details on this scholarship will be released soon.
Dig In!
Reach out to OFTP coordinator Katie Brandt at oftp@msu.edu or call/text her at 616-885-7776 if you have any questions or if you'd like recommendations of farms in your region where you can gain skills this season before taking the OFTP.
