MP3 $1.25
Marketing, Management and Business Planning
2008 Organic Farming Conference La Crosse, WI
Training, Supervising, Managing, and Partnering with Employees
Become an employer is usually an unintentional consequence of farming, but intentionally honing your skills as a good employer may be one of your most valuable farming tools. Join Steve Pincus of Tipi Produce and Linda Halley, farm manager at Gardens of Eagan, as they share insights gained and lessons learned in employee management and training.
Moving toward Stability: Developing Cooperative Models for Marketing Organic Feedstuffs
Competition for acreage from ethanol corn combined with rapid growth in the organic dairy and egg market have created high prices for organic feedstuffs and a crisis of affordability for organic livestock producers. Organic Valley/CROPP Cooperative farm resources manager, Lowell Rheinheimer, will explore emerging models of direct farmer-to-farmer marketing aimed at providing stability, profitability, and sustainability for both field crop growers and their fellow livestock-producing farmers.
AGR-LITE Crop Insurance for the Organic Farmer
ARMtech Insurance Services’ Tom Gowdy will review the AGR-LITE program from a farmer’s perspective and demonstrate its usefulness to the organic farmer. This workshop will include a review of several different examples, including situations when AGR-LITE works for growers and when it may not.
Making the Right Financial Decisions on Your Farm
Organic beef farmer and small business consultant, Jim Munsch, will help you determine which decisions are most critical to the sustainability of your operation and how to identify the information that is necessary to make smart decisions - not all of it comes from your farm accounting system! This workshop’s emphasis will be on keeping things simple so that measurements and decision-making become an effective tool you will use on a daily basis.
Shaking the Federal Money Tree: Using Federal Programs to Support Your Work
Federal programs can provide a valuable way to support the work you do as an organic farmer. Join Michael Fields Agricultural Institute’s Jeanne Merrill to learn how to design sound and effective projects, identify federal programs that might help support your work, and maximize the likelihood of obtaining resources from them.
Post-Harvest Handling and Packing for Wholesale Markets
Knowing how to make your produce meet the expectations of wholesale buyers can make the difference between market farming success and failure. Join Sustain’s Dennis Fiser and Gardens of Eagan farm manager, Linda Halley, for a look at how to store, handle, and package your produce, as well as the oft-neglected topics of food safety, audits, record-keeping, and more.
So You Want to Be a Farmer: Successful Farmers, Successful Farmer Training
Whether you are looking for land, have just purchased land, are interested in tweaking your current operation, or are considering starting a beginning farmer training program, join Deborah Cavanagh-Grant, Central Illinois Farm Beginnings co-coordinator, and Karen Stettler, Land Stewardship Project Farm Beginnings program director, as they outline important key points to consider as you plan for a viable organic farm.
Before the Next Storm: Disaster Preparedness for Organic Farmers
As 2007 showed, natural disasters threaten the physical and financial well-being of organic farms. Join Farmers’ Legal Action Group staff attorney, Jill Krueger, to learn about federal programs that can help minimize risk before the next flood, drought, or blizzard strikes, or aid recovery after disaster hits, as well as ways that current disaster assistance programs fall short for organic farmers.
Direct Marketing Meats: Sell What You Raise, Raise What Sells
Each year, Earth-Be-Glad Farm’s Mike and Jennifer Rupprecht market more than sixty grass-fed beef, two thousand organic chickens, and fresh organic turkeys direct to consumers, food co-ops, and farmers market customers. Join them as they share more than fifteen years of experience raising and marketing meat from their certified organic farm near Lewiston, Minnesota.
Balancing the Scales: Options and Opportunities for Market Farmers to Earn a Livelihood
While no set answer exists to the question of how fresh-produce growers can make a decent, full-time living, various options and examples abound in the Upper Midwest. Market farmer and University of Wisconsin Center for Agricultural Systems researcher, John Hendrickson, will address the thorny issues of farm size, income, labor, equipment, and markets based on his research, observations, and personal experience.
other conferences
Farmers Markets – Bringing Profit Home
Chris Blanchard - You’ve gone through all the work to grow your product for market. Now, are you going to make a profit on it? Join Rock Spring Farm’s Chris Blanchard for a look at the principles and practices used at farmers markets around the country to increase sales and profits.
Thinking Upstream: Decision Making on Your Organic Farm
Klaas and Mary-Howell Martens, Lakeview Organic Grain, Penn Yan, NY - How we make profitable decisions based on weed control, crop rotations, equipment, labor, weather, markets, and family needs.
Quality Standards for the Wholesale Market
This session will guide growers through a number of specific produce items and the size, packing, and storage standards that apply to them. Whole Foods Market Regional Produce Purchasing Team Leader Alex Rilko will provide details on the nationally known organic grocery’s produce buying strategies and quality standards. Sandi Kronick, Manager at Eastern Carolina Organics (ECO), a farmer-owned cooperative in North Carolina that sells to Whole Foods, will discuss post-harvest handling issues.
Preserving Farmland
Gerry Cohn
There’s Strength in Numbers: Regional Marketing Alliances
Find out how farmers are joining forces for mutual benefit. Reid Torrance, Extension Service Coordinator for Tattnall County, was instrumental in developing the highly successful Farm Fresh Tattnall, a farmer cooperative whose members have been in the roadside market and U-Pick produce business for years. Sandi Kronick manages Eastern Carolina Organics (ECO), a farmer cooperative in the Triangle area of North Carolina that sells to restaurants and retail stores.
Keepin’ It in the Family: Family Farm Enterprises
It’s the dream of every farmer. These family farmers will describe the business models that have kept their farms going for the next generation. Will Harris, White Oak Pastures, Bluffton, GA; Chad Carlton, Carlton Family Farm, Rockmart, GA; Chris Paul, Paulk Vineyards, Wray, GA.
Keep on Truckin’: Emerging Distribution Opportunities
Getting food from point A to point B to meet the local food demand can be a vexing exercise. Learn how growers and organizations are building alliances to supply restaurants, retailers, and institutions. Panelists include Christy Cook, Campus Purchasing Manager for Emory University; Mike Smith, Longwood Plantation & Coastal Organic Growers Groups; and Will and Laurie Moore, Farmers Fresh Food Network.
Blueprint for Building a Community Farmers’ Market
This facilitated discussion will cover how to start and sustain a successful producer market. Topics will include regulations, publicity, finding farmers and vendors, and obtaining funding and community support. Speakers include Karen Hunt and Ronnie Barentine of the Hawkinsville Downtown Community Market, and Kathy Jones of Dublin’s Market on Madison.
Pay-Ahead Marketing Systems: CSA and Subscription Sales
Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) and Subscription Sales (SS) are excellent marketing strategies. There are many mental and physical challenges to planning, producing, and delivering a bountiful harvest week after week. Come for insight, inspiration, and educational examples you can use in planning your CSA or SS. Presented by Theresa Nartea, Agribusiness & Marketing Specialist for Cooperative Extension Program at North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University, Greensboro, NC; and farmer Lynn Pugh, Cane Creek Farm, Cumming, GA.
Cafeteria Heroes: Fresh Ideas for Bringing Local Foods into Your Local School
At a time when childhood obesity and nutrition-related disease is rapidly rising, Farm to School programs are emerging as thoughtful, holistic solutions that improve student nutrition while supporting small local farms. This facilitated discussion will look at the variables needed to create successful Farm to School programs, potential challenges and opportunities, and the resources already available to construct a successful program in Georgia. Panel discussion features Glyen Holmes, Executive Director of the New North Florida Growers Association; Vonda Richardson of Florida A&M University’s Small Farm Program; and Erin Croom, former program evaluator for Vermont Food Education Every Day (FEED).
Celebrating 20 Years of CSA
Much has changed in the 20 years since CSA came to North America. Farmer and Sharing the Harvest author Elizabeth Henderson joins long-time CSA farmer and 2003 MOSES Organic Farmer of the Year Linda Halley for a look at the history of CSA, an evaluation of the current status of CSAs, and where the CSA movement may want to go in the future.
Finding Financing for Your Organic Operation
Agricultural lenders have plenty of experience evaluating loans for traditional farming operations, but borrowing money to start an organic operation in a mostly traditional area can present a challenge. Join ISU’s Craig Chase and Viking State Bank’s Rick Burras for an interactive session about how to approach a lender for an alternative food or farm business
Business Planning for a Successful Farm Start-Up
Many organic farmers start their operations without the advantages enjoyed by some conventional farmers: a farm, family labor, machinery, and a fancy pick-up truck. The good news is that success requires none of these things. Sauk County, Wisconsin, Extension Agent Paul Dietmann shares ten years of experience working with successful and not-so-successful beginning farmers.
Selling Produce to Retailers
From certification and communication to bunch sizes and lot codes, the details count no matter where you sell your vegetables. Produce managers Dean Schladweilerof the Wedge Coop and Andy Johnstonof Willy Street Coop will share the key factors that make the relationship between farmers and retailers work for everybody.
Adding New Enterprises
Adding a new enterprise or dropping a production line are crucial decisions important to your farm’s bottom line. A successful decision making process involves making market, number and personal lifestyle choices. Kay Jensen and Paul Ehrhardt of JenEhr Family Farm will share the successful process they use in making enterprise decisions.
Marketing Models for the Market Farm
Thinking about starting a CSA? Wondering about marketing produce through stores and restaurants? Join Barb Perkins of Vermont Valley Community Farm and Greg Reynolds of Riverbend Farm - two farmers with two very different marketing models - for a discussion of how they market their produce and the upsides and downsides of different marketing methods
Measurements for Making Decisions on Your Farm
To be successful on a sustainable basis a farmer must know how to consistently satisfy the customer and make a sufficient financial return. Consultant, teacher, and farmer Jim Munschlooks at ways to collect data, turn it into useful information and analyze it to assure that daily, yearly, and long term decisions are good ones
Raise What the Customer Wants: Real Life Marketing
How will you find and assess markets for your farm products? Which products will sell? How do you find the right customers, and how will you set your prices? Four Winds Farm’s Juliet Tomkinsand Prescott Bergh will walk through the steps to evaluate markets and marketing strategies that fit your unique location, products and personality
New Whole-Farm Revenue Insurance
The Risk Management Agency, a USDA agency, now has available a streamlined whole-farm revenue protection insurance package (AGR-Lite) to cover almost all farm-raised crops, animals, and animal products, including organic and identity-preserved production. Join RMA’s Gary Luebke for a review of the program and how it fits your farm.
Using Organic Vegetable & Fruit Enterprise Budgets to Make Decisions
Small food and farming businesses have many difficult decisions to make, from enterprise selection to production practices and pricing. ISU’s agricultural business management field specialist Craig Chase will illustrate how to construct and utilize enterprise budgets to make these types of decisions easier and more profitable
Figuring the Cost to Own and Operate Farm Machinery
Machinery is often a necessity - and sometimes a luxury - on a farm. Join UW-Extension’s Paul Dietmannto learn how to calculate the ownership and operating costs for a variety of farm machinery, determine the acres it will take to cover those costs, and decide whether it makes sense to buy, rent, or custom hire.