Make hay while the sun shines (market grain while the toddler sleeps)
By Halee Wepking | Even with all of the small mills, bakeries, and distilleries that are popping up, and with the growing demand for organic food-grade small grains in general, there is a hole in the supply chain.
Resource Spotlight: 12 Month Farm Finance Challenge
The first few weeks of the New Year are a good time to reflect on how lucky we are to work in agriculture. For many, the farm lifestyle is as, if not more, important than making money. Yet farms are still businesses, and many young farmers aren’t spending enough time managing their farm’s finances. Many […]
BOOTSTRAP @ FORAGER FARM – MARKETING THE STARTUP FARM:
By Hannah Moser of Forager Farm I’ve always viewed marketing as telling a story and there’s no better story to tell than the one of growing food and community. I feel a bit biased discussing marketing in farming. Before I decided to be a farmer, I was a marketer. I have a degree in Public […]
Is social media working for your farm?
Even if we may prefer the company of cows or the peace of a field to the company of others, marketing is an undeniable part of operating a successful small farm or business. Farm conferences around the country now regularly offer marketing and social media training specifically to help nudge the more introverted among us […]
BOOTSTRAP @ NORTH COUNTRY CREAMERY – DEVELOPING A MARKETING PLAN
By Ashlee Kleinhammer of North Country Creamery This year we took a multi-prong approach to marketing. I was striving toward an ideal that we would sell most of our products through a CSA. We managed to serve around a dozen members locally, and twenty-eight members through Juniper Hill Farms’ Farmigo share (a CSA service […]
BOOTSTRAP @ BLUE SAGE FARM – DEVELOPING A MARKETING PLAN:
By Laura Sluder Farmer’s markets have been the mainstay of my marketing plan for the past 9 years. They are a great way to get a small farm up and running with some cash flow but there are downsides to farmer’s markets. For one, they are usually only open in the summer but farm expenses […]
BOOTSTRAP @ CHASEHOLM FARM – REFLECTIONS ON MARKETING
By Sarah Lyons Chase of Chaseholm Farm This is post is coming at a good time for the farm, we were approved for raw milk sales last week and concrete was poured in our future tiny farm store. Getting into dairy farming from cheese making was like taking a step further behind the scenes, further […]
BOOTSTRAP @ THE GOLDEN YOKE – MARKETING & SALES
By Laura Ginsburg of The Golden Yoke For marketing, like the rest of our farm venture, we are starting small with big visions for the future. We currently have a logo, a Facebook page, a domain name, and the makings of a Kickstarter campaign. We have visions of shirts, stickers, ice cream cartons, a scoop […]
Bootstrap @ Chaseholm Farm – Marketing and Sales
This is post is coming at a good time for the farm, we were approved for raw milk sales last week and concrete was poured in our future tiny farm store. Getting into dairy farming from cheese making was like taking a step further behind the scenes, further away from farmers markets and retail pricing, […]
MOSES' focus on Young Organic Stewards
The recent Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service (MOSES) conference featured a host of workshops, including some specifically intended for young farmers. The Young Organic Stewards program, for example, included presentations on topics ranging from marketing and business to the use of social media to promote a business. Those addressing the financial side of farming […]