The following links were compiled during initial research for this course. If you have any that you would like to ad, please send the link with a brief summary of the sources strengths.
Ontario AgBusiness OMAFRA
http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/busdev/agbusdev.html
Source of links and contacts for OMAFRA’s programs and publications.
Vermont New Farmer Network
http://www.uvm.edu/~susagctr/NFN.html
Organizes access for land, skills, finances and markets for new farmers. Their resource guide focuses on these four areas. And provides an extensive list of relevant organizations for new farmers.
New farmer resource manual 2
http://www.uvm.edu/%7Ewagn/resourceguide71107.pdf
-Contains four short articles. Topics: Access to capital, access to production knowledge and technical assistance, access to farm land, access to markets and marketing
Government of Saskatchewan
http://www.agriculture.gov.sk.ca/organic-farming
In depth organic faming production information
SPIN – Small Plot Intensive Farming
A farming system designed to assist and encourage profitable direct marketed farming. They offer no direct training but have produced a comprehensive list of resources for their method. Topics include: urban market information, marketing how tos, work flow practices, lifestyle, tools, land access.
Canadian Farm Business Management Council
http://www.farmcentre.com/home.aspx
Sustainable Agriculture Research & Education
Based in the United States they fund projects, education and research to advance agricultural systems. They have an on-line database allowing access to project outlines, contacts and updates. Their main funding focus’ are: farmer PD, farmer research, masters research, education and community development.
http://wsare.usu.edu/pub/index.cfm?sub=mktsearch – online database of resources about direct marketing for farmers
The Farmer Connection
http://www.ibiblio.org/farming-connection/
Great collection of well organized links and resources for small scale sustainable farming.
Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture
http://www.leopold.iastate.edu/index.htm
The center focuses on marketing policy and ecology in a small farm context. They offer and fund a wide diversity of programs. They do not offer any farmer training. There is a good collection of small scale farming resources and market information (mainly based in Iowa) about consumers trends and local foods.
Business Start up Assistant
http://bsa.canadabusiness.ca/gol/bsa/site.nsf/en/index.html
Many links through the federal government and associated ministries. Great resources for source information about taxation, permits, etc
New England Small Farm Institute
http://www.smallfarm.org/explorer/resources.htm
Resource links categorized by course theme.
Minnesota Institute for Sustainable Agriculture
MISA is a branch of the Minnesota University. They run sustainable agriculture research with the university and produce a prolific amount of writing. They run a university level planning course: http://www.misa.umn.edu/Student_Organic_Farm_Planning_Course.html
http://www.misa.umn.edu/vd/bizplan.html -this is the business plan manual
Their main publications page http://www.misa.umn.edu/Misa_Publications2.html
ATTRA – National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service 1
ATTRA generates extensive and very relevant publications – over 250.
They also have a farmer telephone line which directs questions to their publications or researches the answer. There are multiple publications for most our course themes.
Internship Directory: http://www.attrainternships.ncat.org/
Direct Marketing: http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/PDF/directmkt.pdf
All Publications: http://attra.ncat.org/publication.html#marketing
New England Small Farm Institute
http://www.smallfarm.org/explorer/index.htm
They offer an “Exploring the Small Farm Dream” do it yourself handbook with some of the activities posted. The organization’s strives to serve small farms with education, information and partnerships. Their course is offered as a NxLevel course.
http://growingnewfarmers.org/pdf/OnlineLearningWorkbook.pdf ***
-a how to design online learning for new farmers resource!
People who are running ‘Exploring the Small Farm Dream”
http://www.mass.gov/agr/programs/abtp/combined_explorer_flyer.pdf
Two Groups out east – Jamey Coughlan
Santa Cruz – Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems 2
http://casfs.ucsc.edu/education/instruction/tdm/contents.html
A university center offering many different courses. This is a teachers manual for Direct Marketing and Small Farm Viability. Excellent resources listed at the end of each section with many web sites. The course focuses on: farm viability, CSA’s, land tenure options and business planning.
http://casfs.ucsc.edu/education/instruction/tofg/contents.html
Teaching Organic Farming and Gardening: Resources for Instructors is a manual that provides great starting templates for running production skill related workshops. Offers progressions and lesson plans on all aspects of small scale organic farming.
Agri-Food Canada – CFMBC “So you want to be a farmer?” 2
http://agmarketing.extension.psu.edu/Business/PDFs/SoWantFarmr.pdf
-Provides a good overview of aspects involved in choosing to farm
-Asks good questions and is thorough in its approach targeting people who
are considering farming as a career.
-Resources and references are situated around the Eastern Provinces.
Northeast Organic Farming Association of New Jersey
http://www.nofanj.org/
Nofa has a strong educational program for punlic schools as well as new farmers. They are currently developing a mentorship program and offer Exploring the Small Farm Dream program however there are few details available on their website
.
Small Business Resource Guide for Organic Farmers (BC)
http://www.smallbusinessbc.ca/pdf/organic.pdf
A great Canadian resource with annotated links to banks, programs etc
Local Resources
The Ontario Rural Council
http://www.torc.on.ca/index.shtml
Offered a local food conference in December 2007. They focus on networking with rural stakeholders to promote rural activity vitality and awareness.
www.localflavourplus.ca - LFP - Mike Schreiner
Contacted by phone, they do more in-depth training catered to the group they are presenting to. High possibility for a presentation in our course.
Farmers Feed Cities - http://www.farmersfeedcities.com/main07.php?id=25
Created and organized by the association of grain and oil seed growers, this is a public awareness campaign taking place across Southern Ontario. Their main areas are in conventional farm lobbying and public awareness. They organize provincial protests and national events like the worlds longest bbq, a day of barbecuing local meat or fish across the country.
FarmChoice
A new Government of Canada interactive website designed to help farm families and individuals plan their businesses. Has a chat room, discussion forums and few resources. Simple and straight forward. Good links to excel documents for financial planning.
Ecological Farmers Association of Ontario – www.efao.org
The EFAO offers educational courses for farmers. Their course on direct marketing is the closest related course to our mission. They also have a successful mentorship program.
Run through the IOWA state university this center focus is on families and succession. They have an interesting program called “Farm On” which attempts to pair retiring farmers with new farmers and offer the necessary support and training. http://www.extension.iastate.edu/bfc/programs.html#Farm%20On
The National Farm Transition Network http://www.farmtransition.org/
Based in the US, this organization focuses on farm succession.
Michael Fields Agricultural Institute ***1
http://www.michaelfieldsaginst.org/programs/index.html
This is an independent agricultural organization which runs policy, school, farmer education, crop research and food system programs. Located in Wisconsin they offer a 3 year full farmer training program with many striking similarities with our intentions. They charge tuition and housing totaling around $5000 for a year. They have different streams for students to enter into. The program is very well established and the prerequisite is a year as a CRAFT intern or equivalent.
Farm Start
Government of Saskatchewan – Green Certificate Farmer Training Program
http://www.agriculture.gov.sk.ca/Default.aspx?DN=c04d1578-791b-44f6-8345-c8f6e5d1b4fc
Program is conventional but appears innovative in that it offers a government supported apprenticeship program for agricultural careers. It includes a stream for irrigated crop production.
Rudolf Stiener Center – Toronto
http://www.rsct.ca/index.cfm?pagepath=Biodynamic_Agriculture&id=949
Currently offering hands on workshop style production and theory training for biodynamic agriculture. The course takes place at the Steiner Center, FoodShare and Cory’s Farm “Saugeen River”.
Angelic Farms
http://www.csalearningcenter.org/farmbeginnings.html 1
Their Stateline Farm Beginnings program has many similarities with our proposal
They have a mentorship component, a business-planning course which is very similar in size and feel to our proposal.
Agricultural Innovation Center
http://aic.uwex.edu/index.cfm 1
AIC works toward supporting sustainable agricultural businesses through 1 – 2 day workshops and conferences. Their resources page is tremendous and full of great ideas. They have partnered with the local college and entrepreneurial organization to exchange skills and cross-pollinate programs. I have requested the guide book for this course: Business Feasibility: A First Cut Analysis
University of Wisconsin College of Agricultural and Life 3 http://www.cals.wisc.edu/students/shortCourse/
The short course program offers credits in 17 weeks during the farming off-season. They can be accumulated into degrees as well as taken individually. There are business management courses however their emphasis is in conventional scales and methods of agriculture.
University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Agricultural and Life Sciences – Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems John A. Hendrickson is a contact from the Illinois Craft network and Angelics. jhendric@wisc.edu
2
http://www.cias.wisc.edu/wsbdf/typicalschedule.htm Dairy course outline
http://www.cias.wisc.edu/dairysch.html
http://www.cias.wisc.edu/marketgrower.php
The center operates further removed from U of W and has a small farm that it trains from. Their two main programs are linked above. The dairy program is more intensive where as the market grower course is an intensive 3 day workshop. There is a small emphasis on business planning and marketing.
http://www.cias.wisc.edu/pdf/IWMfreshmkt.pdf Great index of published resources
Camosun College BC
http://camosun.ca/ce/horticulture.php#566v
Offers a 9 week course in practical organic gardening skills with a farm visit. The program is not listed as having a business planning component. It is run in their continuing education department. They do not offer any on-line courses.
The Land Connection
Multifaceted organization with strong education and awareness programs. They offer a Farmer business training program: Farm Beginnings.
The Land Stewardship Project
http://www.landstewardshipproject.org/
Farm Beginnings Program: http://www.landstewardshipproject.org/farmbeg.html
Similar program to what we are thinking of. Has a mentorship component and rotating livestock loans (Heifer Funded). These are the people that invented Stateline Farm Beginnings.
Tuft’s University
http://nesfp.nutrition.tufts.edu/training/
Tufts University’s Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy,
The New Entry Sustainable Farming Project (NESFP). This is an 18-week
winter training course for people who want to own and operate an
agricultural enterprise and need technical assistance to develop a
business and marketing plan. The program focuses on immigrant farmers.
Massachusetts Government
http://www.mass.gov/agr/programs/abtp/index.htm
Runs 10 session small scale diversified farming business planning courses.
Allows access to course outlines. This is a NxLevel course.
Growing New Farmers
http://www.growingnewfarmers.org/directory/
Amazing directory of farmer business training programs across the United States
Beginner Farmers of New Hampshire http://www.sbfnh.org/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1
Small and Beginning Farmers of New Hampshire are a new organization working towards supporting new farmers. They have an equipment loan program, Heifer Livestock Pass-on and are building a library. They run an annual conference. SBFNH has a system of setting up regional contacts and volunteers that looks interesting. We may want to ask them about how they approach experienced farmer new farmer relationships.
http://www.mcgill.ca/fmt/outline/
McGill offers an extensive agriculture degree which has 4 courses that center around farm business planning. Their MacDonald Campus is an actual farm and their program includes summer internships. Their focus is entirely conventional.