Progress report for ENE25-194
Project Information
The project convenes business advisors for learning in peer and applied settings to improve outcomes in farm viability and resiliency. Business advisors are agricultural professionals working with farm financials in individualized farm settings to achieve farmer goals.
Newer business advisors need to learn to be successful with farm financial analysis in applied settings.
Established business advisors need to:
(1) maintain both deep and timely agricultural, regional food system and market knowledge from continual learning within a network of peers; and
(2) collaborate around commonalities and niches in service provision to tackle complex farmer projects.
Farmers need skilled advisors who can quickly optimize their financial margins, and support on-farm decision-making to increase resiliency. Farmers also require advisors with a combination of hard and soft skills training including broad cultural competencies.
Solution and Approach:
Farms struggle to maintain financial viability. Service providers skilled in farm financials are a small but critical subset. More than 50 organizations produced "The Blueprint" (Blueprint, 2019), describing issues and solutions around farm viability.
Farms receiving individualized, in-depth business advising increase their average annual net farm income by $30,612 in a strong growing year, (Carrot Project, 2022), and by $22,295 in a poor growing year with flooding in the NESARE region (Carrot Project, 2023). Farmers' income increases through business advising that builds resilience and offsets farmers' risk in the face of disruption.
Business advisor retirements and staff turnover continues throughout the Extension system and non-profit sector, the need to replace skilled providers is ongoing. In addition, business advisors need to continually update their skills, and benefit by operating in a peer context that keeps them up to date on knowledge, both deep and timely, that deliverers value to their farmer clients.
Our project will capitalize on two overall approaches in farm business advisor learning:
- LEARNING IN APPLIED SETTINGS:
- Successful instruction moves beyond financial management tools to providing insight on how and when these tools are most effective; as well as strategies for on-farm implementation.
- Innovations include bringing work-learning expertise and adult learning best practices to training and embedding service provider learning within real-world applications.
- LEARNING IN NETWORKS:
- Participating farmers and business advisors succeed when learning within a network to which they already belong, and have ongoing support for implementing what they learn.
- Farmers and business advisors perform best when experiences are not one-off and disconnected from ongoing relationships, but with integrated learning enriched by human connectivity.
50 agricultural service providers will increase their capacities in farm financials for farm resiliency, specifically in keeping records, correcting financial statements, analyzing farm financial health for resilience and on-farm planning. 80 farmers managing 1,800 acres will: (1) improve their record keeping for disaster recovery programs; (2) increase net farm income and/or farmer livelihood satisfaction; (3) or manage key risks, obtain plans or investments to improve on-farm resiliency.
Educational approach
ENGAGEMENT:
We will recruit participants through: our Alliance & National Farm Viability Conference electronic mailing lists, actively scanning for new advisors or organizations in the sector; our Project Advisory Committee.
We will enroll at least 15 early career business advisors in an ongoing course with static membership, and will engage at least 65 business advisors of all career stages in professional development days, which they are encouraged but not required to attend continually.
Participants will practice and interpret what they are learning within the training sessions, in order to be confident in applying the skills. They will learn within their existing peer networks, and have access to expand their network, in order to provide additional means for support and collaboration around implementing the material. They will be provided with templates and examples of work appropriate for their applied settings with farmers.
Participants will apply their learning with three farms of their choosing, affording a safe environment and a context for application. The 15 newer advisors will receive coaching.
The Challenge Clinic aspect of the learning described below will also assist in overcoming challenges.
LEARNING:
Our project team assembled curriculum using resources and tools previously developed, to be used within an evidenced-based, hybrid distance and in-person educational model.
15 early career business advisors will be trained in enterprise budgets, cashflow projections, financial record keeping and building accurate financial statements. Bo Dennis and Marina Ortega will use elements of Bo's MOFGA Farm Beginnings Curriculum. Existing pre-recorded videos will be used in advance, and classroom time will focus on applied group learning through mock farm case studies, helping newer advisors troubleshoot using tools in applied settings.
65 business advisors of all career stages will be trained in analyzing farm financial health, learn new tools for supporting proactive risk management financial decision-making and on-farm planning, in an interactive setting.
Sam Smith will lead participants in analyzing farm financial health and will guide applied learning using the Challenge Clinic activity regularly used by his Business Advising team at Intervale Center:
- Every Challenge Clinic includes one Focus Person that brings a project or challenge they're facing, and could use new ideas or feedback about. The Challenge Clinic is a structure for how to provide ideas and feedback to them.
- Challenge Clinics strengthen teams because they make time to really learn and discuss what others are working on, in an energizing way.
- They leverage "outsider" ideas: Those not deeply involved in the project can offer new insights and help find blind spots, those well-involved will offer insider knowledge.
Jen Miller and Nancey LaRowe will lead participants through the early outcomes and tools in their development of integrated Business Development and Risk Management programing at NOFA-VT, in which farmers receive risk management assessments in conjunction with their business advising services, and receive TA on risk management practices, when in alignment with individual business priorities at the time. They will be supported by Dorothy Suput in further adapting the teaching of these elements successfully with a work-learning and adult education approach.
KNOWLEDGE, AWARENESS, SKILLS
Knowledge: Why to use a specific approach, working effectively on critical path within the holistic context for each farm, deep and timely agricultural, regional food system and market context.
Awareness: Best practices, existing resources, peers to collaborate with, peer examples of working effectively with underserved audiences, the value of business advisor continual learning in improving farmer experiences and outcomes.
Skills: Standard farm financial analysis tools, new tools for resilience and planning around risk and resiliency.
Attitudes: New advisors gain confidence in applied settings, experienced advisors adopt a mindset of impact on farm viability within a supportive professional network in order to continually engage with farms in tough situations, without facing burnout.
EVALUATION:
To verify the service provider performance target, surveys, specific to two training audiences, will be used to demonstrate service provider improvement. Service providers will be surveyed at the end of each training session and at the end of the project.
To verify the farmer performance target, tracking will include the number and acreage of farms served, the outcome of services provided, including farmer record keeping improvement, net farm income, and improvements in on-farm resiliency.
Farmers' performance targets are typically verified in the post-TA data collection by the business advisor, our network participants annually aggregate this data and can associate it with advisors participating in this project.
Dorothy Suput, as budgeted, will assist with project evaluation and the further development of evaluation tools.
Milestones
ALL PARTICIPANTS
- 150 agricultural service providers throughout the northeast SARE region learn about this program's goals, expectations and learning model through electronic and social media outreach. Completed by Aug 15, 2025.
- Status: COMPLETED 10.1.25
- Accomplishments:
A. Completely updated our internal list of northeast business advisors and referrers
B. Developed messaging and published webpages, agendas, learning materials, and registration pages:
- www.thecarrotproject.org/event/northeast-network-professional-development-days/2025-10-15/
- www.thecarrotproject.org/event/farm-financial-advising-a-training-for-new-business-advisors/
C. Sent out event notices:
- 4 targeted marketing emails, reaching 92 business advisors
- 19 personalized direct emails and follow-ups to program directors employing business advisor staff and contractors or managing collaborating networks to share with their audiences -- combined with their audiences and ours we estimate this more than reaches our 150 service provider outreach milestone.
NEWER ADVISOR TRAINING GROUP MILESTONES
Status: We published and publicized the registration for the Newer Advisor training, as above. However, we had only one sign-up and due to the chaos of 2025, the lead trainer's availability changed significantly. We have put this portion of the project on hold for now and will continue to touch base with you about it.
In addition, Julia Shanks continued to offer her Coach's Primer course again along the same timeframe and Poppy Davis has continued to offer advisor training content through CA Farmlink as well -- you never know what else will be going on when you submit a proposal, but as we are able to recommend these courses right now for this audience, the northeast network may be better served with a revised offering with this $16K portion of the project budget reserved for the lead trainer.
- 27 interested newer advisor participants submit an electronic application that includes an agreement to complete pre- and post- session assignments, attend web-based sessions, work with at least three farms, complete participant evaluations, and collect outcome data of the farmers with whom they work. Completed by September 30, 2025.
- Status: IN PROGRESS
- Accomplishments: Only one advisor signed up. We will reevaluate whether to schedule this again later or modify this portion of the project, in consultation with you, as noted above.
- After applications are reviewed by a project advisory group in the fall of 2020, 22 selected participants receive an invitation to the project. The invitation contains a schedule and link for an initial video conference session covering program expectations and description of how to use the on-line learning platform. Completed by November 30, 2025.
- Status: NOT BEGUN
- Accomplishments:
- 22 accepted participants engage in a video conference where they learn how to navigate the on-line learning platform that houses: educational resources, pre-session assignments, post-session activities, recorded videos of the sessions, PDFs of presentations, financial management tools, and participant and farmer evaluation tools. Completed by December 15, 2025.
- Status: NOT BEGUN
- Accomplishments:
- 22 participants receive reminder emails before each session that provides pre-session assignments including readings, videos, and/or podcasts. All materials will be housed on the learning platform. Participants convene for eight sessions. Four of the session modules will occur over two 2-day in-person meetings, and four will occur virtually. Completed by November 1, 2026.
- Status: NOT BEGUN
- Accomplishments:
- 18 participants select three farmers with whom they will work to practice and teach the knowledge and skills they gained. It is anticipated that participants will engage with the farmers between three to four times per year. Participants choose when they engage with farmers based on their knowledge of the materials. Completed by December 1, 2026.
- Status: NOT BEGUN
- Accomplishments:
- 18 participants meet for virtual group coaching 5 times over 5 months to discuss strategies for working with their farmers. They are guided through the Challenge Clinic framework by their instructors and a guest coach each session, who may be a member of the Project Team or Project Advisory Team. Participants begin consulting with farmers from mid-January. Completed by May 1, 2027.
- Status: NOT BEGUN
- Accomplishments:
ALL STAGES & EXPERIENCED ADVISOR TRAINING GROUP MILESTONES
- 50 program participants register annually for an in-person professional development day. Completed by Sept 15, 2025.
- Status: COMPLETED 10.10.25
- Accomplishments:
A. We had 37 individuals register for the event held on 10.15.25. We are optimistic that we may reach over 50 advisor participants by the end of the project.
We sent out registration confirmation and logistical emails to registration, and coordinated with the trainer to include an Agenda with homework questions:
Challenge Clinic: Bring Your Questions If you are facing a current challenge in your work, please bring a question about it. The question can about any subject related to your work and clients. It can be a technical topic, soft skills, or process oriented. The Challenge Clinic directions we will be using can be found here.
Sample Questions: - My clients have varied levels of motivation to do work between meetings. How can I get less motivated clients to do the work necessary to have productive meetings? - I have had a number of clients who seem to actively avoid the topic of debt? How can I get a farm client to address the impact debt is having on their life/farm
The trainer, Sam Smith, presented on assessing client needs, advisor soft skills and getting beyond crisis thinking, among other topics (slides link: Soft Skills), and coordinated multiple successful Challenge+Clinic+HowTo (1) exercises.
- 50 program participants meet for one in-person professional development day in each calendar year of the project. Service providers enhance their skills in correcting financial statements, analyzing farm financial health and supporting proactive resiliency and risk management financial decision-making and on-farm planning. Completed by Nov 1, 2025.
- Status: COMPLETED 10.15.25
- Accomplishments:
A. We had 35 individuals attend the event held on 10.15.25. We did not meet our goal of having 50 individuals attend but we will keep working on it!
- 50 program participants register annually for an in-person professional development day. Completed by May 15, 2026.
- Status: NOT BEGUN
- Accomplishments:
- 50 program participants meet for one in-person professional development day in each calendar year of the project. Service providers enhance their skills in correcting financial statements, analyzing farm financial health and supporting proactive resiliency and risk management financial decision-making and on-farm planning. Completed by June 20, 2026.
- Status: NOT BEGUN
- Accomplishments:
- 50 program participants register annually for an in-person professional development day. Completed by May 15, 2027.
- Status: NOT BEGUN
- Accomplishments:
- 50 program participants meet for one in-person professional development day in each calendar year of the project. Service providers enhance their skills in correcting financial statements, analyzing farm financial health and supporting proactive resiliency and risk management financial decision-making and on-farm planning. Completed by June 20, 2027.
- Status: NOT BEGUN
- Accomplishments:
ALL PARTICIPANTS
- 65 program participants complete learning and outcome verification tools documenting increases in knowledge, skills, actions, and impacts resulting from program participation for both themselves and the farmers with whom they work. Service providers will be complete the tools and be surveyed at the end of each training session and at the end of the project. Farmer evaluations are conducted yearly. Completed by 6.30.27.
- Status: IN PROGRESS
- Accomplishments:
A. We completed an Evaluation Guide as of 9.3.25. We will use this guide for this project, but provide it as a public resource on our SARE project page, and use it in an ongoing manner to evaluate all Ag Viability Alliance professional development educational offerings for business advisors. We are very pleased to have this portion of our program evaluation scoped out so well and appreciate Northeast SARE funding this work.
27 participants out of 35 attendees completed evaluations of the 10.15.25 training event. The qualitative and quantitative results summarized by question are included here: TCP AVA 10.15.25 Post-Training Evaluation Summary . The qualitative results to questions 9 and 10 are additionally summarized here: TCP AVA 10.15.25 Post-Training Evaluation QUALITATIVE Results Summary the complete data including all qualitative results is included here: TCP AVA 10.15.25 Evaluation ALL Results.
Farmer evaluation collection is conducted yearly in June and has not occured yet -- we review farmer data from the prior year once taxes and final financial statements are available and submitted.
Milestone activities and participation summary
Educational activities and events conducted by the project team:
Participants in the project’s educational activities:
Learning Outcomes
Performance Target Outcomes
Performance Target Outcomes - Service Providers
Target #1
50
increase their capacities in farm financials for farm resiliency, specifically in keeping records, correcting financial statements, analyzing farm financial
health for resilience and on-farm planning.
80
1800
We will not verify these things until later in the project. These outcomes are TBD.
Performance Target Outcomes - Farmers
Target #1
80
(1) improve their record keeping for disaster recovery programs; (2) increase net farm income and/or farmer livelihood satisfaction; (3) or manage key risks, obtain plans or investments to improve on-farm resiliency.
1800 acres
0
0