View site in English, Español, or Français

The fair-trade ticketing company.

Find An Event

Create Your Event

Help

Feeding Yourself, Feeding Us: Entrepreneurial Business Intensive

Sebastopol Grange
Sebastopol, CA

Share this event:

Event

Feeding Yourself, Feeding Us: Entrepreneurial Business Intensive

TOPICS COVERED

Business Planning
Mapping Your Farm
Book-Keeping
Market Research
Value Added Products
Production Planning
Lease Negotiation
Financing
Permits, Licensing, & Regulation

From community gardens to WOOF'ing, agriculture today is attracting a whole new wave of passionate recruits. What often awaits them is a gaping chasm between that on-farm internship and the establishment of a successful agricultural business. For many, the allure of farming rarely entails hours at a desk grappling with spreadsheets. But ask the very best farmers and they'll all agree: success comes from managerial acumen as much as from a green thumband perfecting the former leaves more time to focus on the latter.

This weekend-long series of workshops seeks to provide new and aspiring farmers with an interactive introduction to the entrepreneurial tools required to succeed, as a necessary supplement to their on-farm training. Workshops are not intended to be comprehensive, but will provide the basic tools, incentive, and community support to pursue further study, activities and structured preparation for their career or a new farm. By partnering with local Granges, organizations and local businesses, we'll keep costs at a minimum, making this training accessible to even those on a farm intern's budget.

As The Farmers Guild does with all its programs, this entrepreneurial intensive is designed to be fun, interactive and community-driven, with non-business activities woven into the program and peer-to-peer farm stays for those from out of the county. And as part of the wider Farmers Guild network, the education received during this weekend will ripple out, as these new entrepreneurs will return to their respective Guild communities to share knowledge among their peers and keep each other on track. This program is specifically designed to be replicable by other groups, no matter their resources or local circumstances, be they other Farmers Guilds, local Granges or other partner organizationsthe second of which is already scheduled to take place at the Grange Farm School in April.