Women in Agriculture (WAgN)

I've been thinking alot lately about the role(s) of computer technology in small-scale agriculture. Email, websites, blogs...the opportunities are many. Of course the hook that lures many of us into this realm is the belief that we can use technology to increase the quantity and quality of our communications (with our customers, communities, and colleagues) while saving time and resources. Can it work? I'm interested in your thoughts on how you use computers in your agricultural business.

Here's a podcast from NPR's Science Friday. The topic is Lunch Lessons-Talking about the way we feed our children.The guest is Ann Cooper, author of Lunch Lessons. Ann is a chef who works in the Berkeley, CA school system. Go ahead and listen.

Lunch Lessons with guest Ann Cooper

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In Vermont there are several initiatives underway to connect farmers and schools to get more local foods into the cafeteria. For more information check out the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont

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

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.

The Women's Agricultural Network would like to extend a sincere Happy New Year to all of you. We wish you a prosperous, healthy and productive year. Thank you for all you do to keep our landscape working.

We'd also like to encourage you to complete the USDA 2007 Census of Agriculture. The forms were mailed last week and should be arriving in your mailbox soon.

The Census of Agriculture is the responsibility of every farmer and rancher, regardless of the size or type of operation. For Census purposes, a farm is any place from which $1,000 or more of agricultural products were produced and sold, or normally would have been sold, during the Census year.

This year for the first time you can complete the census online. Look for instructions along with the passcode inside your form. If you do not receive a form you can request one at https://www.agcounts.usda.gov/cgi-bin/counts

The deadline for completing the census is February 4, 2008.