Women in Agriculture (WAgN)

1. Growing Places, a non-credit course designed to help people explore the possibilities – and realities – of owning or expanding an agricultural business, will be offered by the Women’s Agricultural Network (WAgN) in Middlebury beginning on October 13. Additional on-line sessions will be offered in early 2008.

2. "Adding the Internet to Your Business Recipe:"
Using e-mail, Web sites and e-commerce to connect farm businesses with existing and new markets

The University of Vermont Center for Rural Studies and The Women’s Agricultural Network (WAgN) will a three-day workshop on the Internet and e-commerce in October and November. Participants will learn how e-mail, Web sites and selling online can connect farm businesses to their current customers and to new markets.

Will be held from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Oct. 17, Oct. 24 and Nov. 7 in Randolph. The first two days will cover the basics of using the Internet as a marketing tool and online sales. There will be presentations by small business owners and e-commerce experts, group activities and concrete steps for getting started or fine-tuning an Internet presence. The final session will be a hands-on workshop focusing on specific e-commerce-related skills.
The workshop is geared toward female farm-based business owners but is open to anyone.

The registration fee is $75 ($60 before Oct. 2) and includes lunch each day. Register online at www.regonline.com/ecommerceworkshop07 or contact Beth Holtzman at wagn@uvm.edu or (802) 223-2389, Ext. 15, for a registration form.

3. New Course to Address the Needs of Maturing Farm Businesses

The University of Vermont Women’s Agricultural Network (WAgN) is offering a new course to help experienced farm business owners focus on key issues of maturing businesses. The course, Taking Stock, will start October 25 and is designed for farmers who have been in business for at least five years.

"It's easy to get so caught up in the day-to-day business of running a farm that you forget to step back and ask yourself, 'How healthy is this business? Is this business still making me happy?'" said WAgN director Mary Peabody. "This course will help participants take that step to assess their operations and help them manage their way to healthy farm businesses."

Taking Stock participants will learn how to take a critical look at their businesses, re-assess what is working and discover where some fine-tuning might be needed. Topics will include financial analysis, legal issues, labor management, business transition planning, among others.

The 12-hour class will be held in South Burlington on four consecutive Thursday evenings from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m., starting on October 25 and running through November 15.

The fee is $135 and covers registration and all materials. As part of this pilot course, participants will be eligible to receive a $100 rebate on the registration fee in return for completing an in-depth evaluation of the course.

For more info on any of these courses: Beth.Holtzman@uvm.edu

Fall is a great time to pull together all that information you collected this summer but didn't have the time to do anything with--the planting schedules, harvest records, labor records, equipment logs, market receipts--and get started updating (or developing) your enterprise budgets for next year.

An enterprise budget is a tool that is used by farmers to evaluate the efficiency and profitability of a particular enterprise. There are many places on the internet where you can get templates for enterprise budgets and see examples of budgets completed by others.

Here are a couple of my favorite sites to get you started:

CIAS Enterprise Budgets

Rutgers Enterprise Budgets

Due Date: December 18, 2007

SARE Farmer grants are a great way to do a little research, conduct an experiment, or try something a little risky and then pass along the results to other farmers. If you have an idea, WAgN staff are available to help you think through the proposal, offer assistance or help get you connected to a potential technical advisor.

The goal of the Farmer grant program is to develop, refine, and demonstrate new sustainable techniques and to explore innovative ideas developed by farmers across the region. Information gained from these farm-based projects may be used to redirect research priorities.

To apply, you must be a farmer in the Northeast SARE region. You need not be farming full time, but your operation should have an established crop or animal product that you sell on a regular basis. Nonprofit farms may apply, but the primary activity of the farm must be to produce and sell food under the kinds of economic constraints that affect commercial growers. Many community-supported farms qualify, but farms where the primary mission is educational normally do not.

The region is made up of Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia, and Washington, D.C.

A useful guide to developing a Farmer application, with examples and explanations of what makes a strong proposal, is our 44-page booklet: How to Write a SARE Farmer Grant Application. We also have a checklist for farmer grant technical advisors and a tip sheet specifically for for extension agents.

To learn more about past Farmer projects, you may view the national project database. This database allows you to sort by grant type, region, interest area, and a variety of other criteria. A useful bulletin on farm-based research is How to Conduct Research on your Farm or Ranch. To request printed materials and general background about SARE, call 802-656-0471 or send e-mail to nesare@uvm.edu.

Fax and e-mail applications are not acceptable.

To obtain additional copies of the application, and a list of previously funded projects, write us at the above address, or call (802) 656-0471, or email nesare@uvm.edu.

Bristol, VT—Twenty farms and producers from Addison, Bennington, and Chittenden counties and upwards of 250 food lovers gathered at the Inn at Baldwin Creek at the end of September to celebrate a bountiful feast of locally raised foods prepared by chef-owner Doug Mack. For eleven years now, Mack and his wife Linda Harmon, supporters of local farmers for twenty-five years, have been welcoming guests to share in the harvest and meet the farmers who produce the food served at the inn. The silent auction at the annual event benefits a select organization that supports sustainable agriculture.

This year the Vermont Farm Women’s Fund (VtFYF) received more than $700 garnered from the generosity of participating farmers and author/photographer Peter Miller. Mary Peabody, director of the Women's Agricultural Network (WAgN) and VtFWF says, "We are honored to be the recipient of this year's Feast of Our Farms silent auction and are grateful to the event organizers for thinking of us and to the many farmers and artisans that donated products to the auction." The funds will be used to provide scholarship assistance for area farmers interested in attending business classes, conferences, workshops, trainings that will enhance their farms' profitability. VtFWF anticipates making these awards early in 2008.

The farms and producers who participated in 11th Annual Feast of Our Farms include Apple Ridge Farms, Shoreham; Baldwin Creek Gardens, Bristol; Blue Ledge Farm, Leicester; Boyden Farm Beef, Cambridge; Champlain Orchards, Shoreham; Champlain Valley Creamery, Vergennes; Gleason Organic Grains, Bridport; Last Resort Farm, Monkton; LedgEnd Farm, Middlebury; Lewis Creek Farm, Starksboro; Misty Knoll Farms, New Haven; Monument Farms Dairy, Weybridge; Orb Weaver Farm, New Haven; Otter Creek Brewing, Middlebury; Red Rock Ranch, Hinesburg; Shelburne Vineyards, Shelburne; Twig Farm, West Cornwall; Vermont Coffee Company, Bristol; Wilcox Ice Cream, Manchester; and Wood Creek Farm, Bridport.

VtFWF operates in partnership with WAgN to provide education and technical assistance to women in all phases of farm business management. The organization is dedicated to celebrating the women who have worked diligently to sustain Vermont's working landscape by providing resources to allow farm women to achieve their farming vision. The VtFWF was started with a generous gift from author/photographer Peter Miller upon the publication of his book Vermont Farm Women.

For further information visit www.innatbaldwincreek.com or www.uvm.edu/~wagn/

Saturday's rain did not dampen the spirits of the 12 individuals that completed the 18-hour Growing Places class in Middlebury, VT. These individuals came together to explore the feasibility of starting or expanding an agricultural business. The class, which addresses topics such as goal-setting, decision-making, resource evaluation, financial planning, and marketing is offered several times each year in both classroom settings and in an online format. To learn more about Growing Places go to the Women's Agricultural Network website and follow the links for Growing Places.

The highlight of the Middlebury class was a farm visit to Orb Weaver Farm in New Haven.

Marjorie answers questions from prospective farmers about the realities of owning and operating a farm.

In addition to a farmstead cheese, Orb Weaver is also a certified organic vegetable farm producing a variety of vegetables for the Addison County region. Most of the vegetables are sold through the Middlebury Coop.

The cheese cave at Orb Weaver Farm where some of the farmstead cheese produced by Majorie and Marian goes to be aged.