Farm Beginnings 2024
Intro to Farm Business Planning

Eligibility

Experience

• You have at least 1 full season of production farming experience. 

• You have been paid to do production farming part-time or full-time for at least 1 full season.

Directional clarity

• You have a clear sense or idea of the type of farm business you want to workshop throughout this course.

• You have a sense of short-term and long-term goals for your farm business.

• Have a desire to develop a business idea that pursues viability.

Program goal alignment

• You want to start a farm business in the GrowNYC Greenmarket Producer region (~250 mile radius from Poughkeepsie).

• You want to start a land-based farm business that grows food and products on farmland for communities in the Northeast.

Our Beginning Farmer program provides training, resources, and technical assistance to a limited scope of enterprises. Based on our network of resources, priority will be given to the categories we are resourced and equipped to support. Priority will also be given to enterprises who are aligned with GrowNYC Food and Agriculture’s mission to keep farmland in production in our region (~250 miles from Poughkeepsie) and provide food to New Yorkers.

Enterprises we are resourced to support:

• Food, herbs, and flowers for communities in the Northeast.

• Land-based by-products (such as honey, maple syrup, cheese)

• Aquaculture (such as oysters, kelp)
  
  

Enterprises we are not resourced to support at this time:

• • • Non-food by-products (fibers)

    • Indoor/rooftop urban agriculture businesses (capital intensive)

  • Cannabis farms

  • Majority fundraising-dependent organizations

  • Therapeutic farms

  • Vermiculture/compost businesses

    • Hydroponics/aquaponics

(We suggest → Oko Farms, Farm School Public Course)

• • • Farms focused primarily on education as opposed to production

(We suggest → GrowNYC Green Space)

• • • Value-added businesses for producers that are not using farmland/plants/fungi/animals/insects/sea life to produce their own products

(We suggest → Hot Bread Kitchen)