Farm Business Management Benchmarking

New Entry is excited to be launching a multi-year, Farm Financial Management and Benchmarking project with incubator farm programs across the country!  This project aims to work with beginning, small-scale, diversified specialty vegetable producers participating in or graduating from incubator farm training programs to improve their farm business management and record-keeping practices, benchmark performance against producers at similar scales and enterprises, and develop strategies to increase profitability.

To receive a farm intake form to get started, please sign up to register for the study here:  Sign up for Benchmarking Study

Our project addresses key objectives of the national Farm Business Management Benchmarking (FBMB) program to:

  1. Expand the national farm financial management database to support improved farm management knowledge and skills for a variety of specialty crops throughout multiple regions of the United States
  2. Establish new collaborations and partnerships between farm financial management and beginning farmer training programs to contribute new data to the national database to improve farm management knowledge and skills of agricultural producers.

New Entry will lead the project in collaboration with Kitchen Table Consultants and a subaward to the University of Wisconsin Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems.

Project Advisors include:

  • Dr. Becca Jablonski, Colorado State University Associate Professor, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Food Systems Extension Economist at the Food Systems Institute;
  • Matthew LeRoux, Cornell University Extension Associate and faculty in Applied Economics and Policy and Farm and Agribusiness Management;
  • Seth Wilner, University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension Agricultural Business Management Field Specialist; and
  • Gary Matteson, National Farm Credit Council Senior Vice President of Beginning Farmer Programs.

The following incubator farm organizations (including New Entry) will be involved:

  • Center for Land-Based Learning, CA runs a 7-month registered apprenticeship training program and the California Farm Academy (CFA) program which offers farm business planning courses and a farm business incubator.
  • Association of Land Based Training (ALBA), CA supports Latino farmers on a 100-acre organic incubator farm in the Salinas Valley.
  • VIVA Farms, WA offers a practicum in sustainable agriculture, a farm business incubator, and Food Hub serving Latino farmers.
  • Old Fort at Hesperus, Ft. Lewis College, CO operates the Four Corners Training Network for High Desert Farmers and reaches Native American participants.
  • Lutheran Social Services Global Greens, IA supports refugee and immigrant farmers with land, markets, and IDA/loans.
  • Cultivate Kansas City, MO, supports refugee farmers from Myanmar and central Africa on incubator farms in partnership with New Roots for Refugees of Catholic Charities of Northeast Kansas, KS.

Are you eligible?

If you are a producer and are interested in contributing data to this project starting with your data for 2023 or 2024, or if you run a farmer training program and would like to work with us to get your farmers involved in the project, please reach out to:

Emily Round
Technical Assistance Manager, New Entry Sustainable Farming Project at Tufts University
emily.round@tufts.edu
978-270-7350

Ready to enroll?  To receive a farm intake form to get started, please sign up to register for the study here:  Sign up for Benchmarking Study

Participants will receive:
• Compensation - if you complete the full two years of the study, you will receive $300 ($150 per year over the two-year project study period).

Data Collection will be conducted online via provided survey links.  They types of information that participants will be asked to provide include: farm income, expenses, labor hours, capital expenses, market channels, and other business data.  No personally identifying information will be collected or reported and all data will be kept secure and confidential.