This is the fourth workshop of CISA’s Winter workshop series. Farmer Missy Bahret from Old Friends Farm will advise on the importance of having goals for your farm operation. A clearly articulated vision allows farmers to make business decisions that help them reach their goals. Business decisions made without thought to the short and long-term goals of the farm run the risk of providing misled results or being harmful to the long-term vision of the farmers. It isn’t easy to clearly identify goals. Learn techniques to help you create your goals for: retirement or farm transfer, inclusion of grown children, financial sustainability, quality of life, and much more. A portion of this meeting will also be devoted to the initial meeting of cohort groups, focused on getting to know each other and identifying goals for the cohort group meetings.

This is the fifth class in the winter workshop series. Structured Decision Making (SDM) is a decision making process that integrates empirical and on-the-ground data with values-based objectives. SDM provides outcomes that are grounded in reality and represent the ethics, values, and desires of those individuals involved in decision making. SDM is the standard decision making process used by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and this workshop transfers the steps of SDM from the field of wildlife conservation to the field of sustainable agriculture. During the workshop you will learn about, practice, and apply the steps of SDM to specific on-farm decisions thanks to Assistant Professor, Curt Gervich from SUNY Plattsburgh. At the end of the session you will have the skills you need to implement and adapt this process to your specific farm. Farmer, Marco Turco from Manzini Farm will share his experiences using this tool for decision making.

These meetings will give winter workshop participants the opportunity to network with one another and also provide additional time to discuss and consider their own individual farm needs as it relates to the workshop topics. Each session will have a CISA staff facilitator and a farmer expert (Missy Bahret–Old Friends Farm, Pete Solis– Hampshire College Farm, and Gary Gemme– Harvest Farm of Whately). The topics for the meeting will be determined based on participant interest and determined as the class date gets closer.

Benneth Phelps from The Carrot Project will provide farmers with applicable and effective financial management tools that can be used to make business decisions during this seventh workshop in the series. These tools can be easily used by farmers to implement into farm business operations, to improve productivity, reduce costs, increase net farm income, and improve overall quality of life. This class will use real-world experience of farmers and their service providers to describe farm operation experiences, provide insight into what has worked, what hasn’t, and why. The class will also review the concept of benchmarking, both against your own farm and against others.

These meeting will give winter workshop participants the opportunity to network with one another and also provide additional time to discuss and consider their own individual farm needs as it relates to the workshop topics. Each session will have a CISA staff facilitator and a farmer Expert (Missy Bahret–Old Friends Farm, Pete Solis– Hampshire College Farm, and Gary Gemme– Harvest Farm of Whately). The topics for the meeting will be determined based on participant interest and determined as the class date gets closer.