Regional food infrastructure network

Regional food infrastructure network

Summary

On key piece to building a Regional Food Infrastructure in Western Pennsylvania involves the development of value-added products and direct marketing strategies among livestock farmers. PASA and its cooperators will provide on-going networking, consulting, and educational opportunities for livestock farmers developing products, creating direct marketing opportunities, and seeking financing.

In 2008, PASA began assembling the working groups, identifying farmers and operations interested in developing business plans for value-added processing, and also developed a protocol for effectively evaluating an existing farm enterprise. In 2009, PASA has partnered with the University of Scranton Small Business Development Center Agribusiness and Food Specialty Center to provide expert business planning resources and consulting services to livestock farmers in Western Pennsylvania. At the end of 2009, the project has provided 10 farmers with technical assistance around dairy and grass-fed beef, hosted one business planning workshop involving 18 farmers, and provided 22 livestock farmers with business planning resources. 9 farmers have utilized business planning individual consulting services to begin their business plans.

Objectives/Performance Targets

Task 1. Establish working groups.
Task 2. Develop business plans.
Task 3. Design and implement networking and learning opportunities for livestock farmers and potential buyers.
Task 4. Provide technical assistance.
Task 5. Evaluation.

Performance Target:
Of the 3,000 farmers who learn about the project, 10 of those will open new markets by selling at least $20,000 of their value-added meat products at 5 marketing outlets by 2009.

Accomplishments/Milestones

We continue to provide networking and learning opportunities for livestock farmers and potential buyers. The 2009 Farming for the Future Conference featured beginner and advanced cheese-making pre-conference tracks, including a value-added marketing panel and marketing panel, in addition to a grass-fed, grass-finished beef track.

To facilitate the development of business plans, on April 4th, 2009 PASA hosted a Business Planning Field Day in Slippery Rock, PA for farmers in Western Pennsylvania. A total of 19 farmers attended this workshop taught by professionals from the University of Scranton Small Business Development Center Agribusiness and Food Specialty Center (SBDC). Building on the strength of this collaboration, in September 2009, PASA established a partnership with the SBDC to offer business planning resources and consultation to livestock farmers in the Western Region.

We have learned that business planning is a very personal process, and not one that can be automated. Thus, we have focused on providing personal and individual assistance to farmers to help them complete their plans. A business planning resource packet was created to facilitate the use of the free online business planning template AgPlan. This online system allows farmers to easily share their business plans with professionals from the SBDC as well as other reviewers. PASA has organized business planning meetings and individual consultations with farmers to assist in the development of business narratives, and the SBDC is reviewing business plans and assisting with the development of the financial portion of the plans. This partnership has strengthened the services we are able to offer farmers.

Over 40 farmers were called to re-engage them in the business planning process, and of these, 22 farmers requested and were sent the business planning resource packet. We are interpreting the qualification of “livestock farmer” broadly for the purposes of this grant, because we have found that these services are critical to not only beef farmers, but also to dairy farmers, those that keep goats or sheep, and even bee keepers.

An important lesson that we have learned in the course of providing business planning assistance to farmers is that they often have difficulty setting aside the time to actually write their business plan, and many benefit from hands-on coaching around writing and developing financial documents. An individual consultation of one to two hours can help farmers get the information they need out on paper and facilitate the completion of the narrative sections of the plans. 9 farmers have requested and received individual business planning consultation from PASA, and 5 of these farmers have begun building their business plan within an on-line template with plans to connect with Small Business Development Center consultants and develop their financial plans.

In summary, we have learned that while working groups and meetings are an effective way to disseminate information about business planning, marketing, and product development, the hands-on process of completing a business plan requires individual consultation. Our partnership with the SBDC has provided farmers with this important individual attention by reviewing plans, creating custom financial templates, and helping farmers conduct the analysis necessary to make business decisions.

Impacts and Contributions/Outcomes

The most valuable outcome continues to be farmer education and awareness around the importance of business planning. Business planning assistance is vital in these economic times, as farmers look to diversify and add value to their products and develop strategies to remain profitable.

Our partnership with the University of Scranton SBDC Agribusiness and Food Specialty Center has extended their services across the state of Pennsylvania, and brought a critically needed expertise to the Western region. Providing the highly-valued resource of business planning assistance resource has created an opportunity for PASA to reach beyond our membership to farmers just beginning to think about sustainable agriculture, and through this project we are able to educate and inform them, invite them into the sustainable agriculture community, connect them with others, and help them create plans to develop new markets or new products. This has been especially important to dairy farmers, who are seeking new alternatives to make their businesses profitable.

Collaborators: