Take the next step by Establishing Your Values and Purpose – Strategic Thinking for the Farm Business Getting Expert Advice When Starting a Farm Business Set Your Farm Strategy with Daily Habits What is Strategic Thinking? Extension Food Business Development
For business owners, managers and employees, days are full of endless decisions and actions that affect the health, success and future of ourselves and our businesses. These choices can start to feel like they’re piling up, which creates pressure, stress and a feeling of foreboding that can negatively impact how we make (or put off making) decisions.
Business strategies are practical actions that communicate how a business plans to reach its goals. Thinking strategically about the farm business as a whole helps determine emerging themes, issues, patterns, and opportunities. Learn how to complete a SWOT Analysis for your farm.
Many commodity farms face a fork in the road at some point. The status of their physical infrastructure, labor availability, size, age, or other factors create a time where they must decide to invest in economies of scale or use their resources they have in a more value-added way. Those who invest in economies of scale are […]
Host Katie Wantoch and Jerry Clark, Associate Professor and Agriculture Agent with Extension in Chippewa County, discuss the purchase of an ag bagger between a farmer and his neighbor, operating agreements, and managing forage quality.
Business values influence the farm’s goals and priorities. It is important to be able to recognize differences in the values of owners, stakeholders, managers, and other key personnel and have a process through which each is willing to compromise if necessary, to arrive at mutually acceptable goals and decisions.
Strategic thinking is the intuitive, visual, and creative process you use to make decisions about your farm business. Strategic thinking is all about thinking ahead, anticipating what your competition is going to do, and then taking risks to succeed.
If you are enticed by the potential of a value-added enterprise, then three potential steps to start with tomorrow after breakfast. One, find the stick and hit yourself over the head until you are ready to do your homework. Two, take time to learn more about value-added agriculture enterprises. Three, don’t go it alone. In every state there are people and organizations that stand ready to assist.
Host Katie Wantoch and Ben Jenkins, Agriculture Extension educator in Green Lake County, discuss a farmer and his son who are considering buying a new chopper and how to cash flow this purchase.
There comes a time in the process of starting a farm business when you’ll likely benefit from some expert advice. UW-Madison Extension provides tips for where to find advisors who can serve as a sounding board for your ideas.
Writing out a complete business plan is a time-consuming feat. Before you spend your time and energy writing a multi-page narrative, explore your ideas with a simple tool – the Lean Canvas. Adapted for use by startups, this simple one-page matrix can be a valuable tool to help farm entrepreneurs test a business idea in the context of nine key areas.
Do you count yourself among those who dream of being a farmer? Do you have some property and want to do something productive with it, maybe even make money off it? Are you seeking land and working on developing a viable plan for a future farm business? UW-Madison Extension provides tips fir generating viable ideas for a farm-based business
The CSA Innovation Network and UW-Madison Division of Extension share a report detailing farmer ratings of the most popular eCommerce platforms used by farmers for selling their products.
While a majority of farm products are marketed through a system involving several middlemen, direct marketing maintains the farmer’s connection to the customer, allowing them to develop a unique relationship, tailor their product offerings, and keep money closer to the farm and local community.
A lender’s primary interest is in whether you’re likely to fulfill the requirements of a credit agreement. When a creditor lends you money, he or she does it with the expectation of earning a profit, which is unlikely to happen if there’s a good possibility that you’ll default on the loan. The lender will be […]
Extension offers resources, information and networking opportunities for farmers interested in exploring and assessing new business ideas or revenue streams to their operations. Resources help farmers assess feasibility and critical success factors of new or additional enterprises including value-added production, and marketing and business strategies.
A variety of programs exist in the upper Midwest region that can provide new farmers in Wisconsin with training and education around production, business planning, farm financials, and more. Programs range from on-farm apprenticeships, mentorships, short-term workshops, longer-term curriculum-based programs, and academic institution degrees. Programs often serve beginning farmers with a range of prior knowledge […]
“Beginning farmer” is a broad term that often refers to an individual who has been operating a farm for less than 10 years or someone who has not yet begun to operate a farm but is actively working toward doing so. Today’s beginning farmers tend to be more diverse than previous generations – in demographics, education and experience. In response, the way in which individuals enter farming has become more diverse as well. Programs and trainings that served previous generations of farmers are being expanded and re-defined to meet the needs of new farmers today.