Marketing can help you decide what to grow or produce, choose where and how you want to sell it, differentiate yourself from other farmers, and make effective use of social media and other marketing tools. Learn the basics of doing your own marketing or supervising someone else. This series of 4 webinars is designed as a complete marketing class, but you can view each one as a stand alone course. 

Webinar 1: Use Market Research to Guide Farm Business Decisions

If you want to grow your business, you need to sell more to your existing customers, sell to new customers, and/or expand the number of products or services you offer. Market research can help you generate new ideas and choose the best options. This session will show you how to use basic market research to assess market trends, understand your current or potential customers, and decide what products, prices and channels make sense for your farm. 

About the Instructor:

Myrna Greenfield, founder and “Top Egg” at Good Egg Marketing, provides expert marketing for good food and good causes. Good Egg helps businesses increase sales and build customer loyalty through brand development, sales and marketing strategies, websites, and social media. Greenfield is a frequent speaker, trainer and workshop presenter. She holds and MBA from the Simmons School of Management and lives in Boston, Massachusetts. 

Webinar recorded on May 30, 2018. 

Using this guide, farmers will learn about weeds, why it is important to manage them, and about different tools, techniques, and approaches for weed management they can use in their fields. They also review the effect of tilling on soil health. This teaching resource was developed by Global Gardens in Boise, Idaho in partnership with the Institute for Social and Economic Development (ISED Solutions). Refugee farmer training programs across the country provided feedback on this lesson, which is now integrated throughout the guide.

 The What’s SNAP got to do with it? Expanding your Customer Base with Food Nutrition Programs and Technology recording, is part of the Investing in Your Farm: Accessing Grants and Loans for Growing Your Business workshop series, hosted by the New Entry Sustainable Farming Project.

In this webinar, instructors share knowledge/understanding of state/federal grant and loan programs. Topics covered in the workshop include: 

• Bring SNAP into farmers' bussiness model
• How to Become SNAP authorized at farm stands and farmers' markets
• Application process and accountability
• Information on subsidized SNAP processing equipment and the MA Healthy Incentive Program
• SNAP-CSA pilot
• Farmers Market Nutrition Program coupons, certification, redemption and reimbursement

For additional information please reach us out at: nesfp@tufts.edu

Values-based planning and evaluation tool designed to measure the qualitative and quantitative impacts of community-based food projects - developed by the Center for Whole Communities in collaboration with the Community Food Security Coalition. From the guide: “Whole Measures for Community Food Systems is designed to give organizations and communities a collaborative process for defining and expressing their complex stories and the multiple outcomes that emerge from their work.”

Global Growers developed a series of resources related to providing technical assistance to farmers with previous experience in commercial agriculture. Our technical assistance process begins with the Wholesale Readiness Assessment Tool. After the tool is implemented, theservice provider creates an individualized education plan (IEP) together with the farmer to map learning objectives. As we began to identify individual farmers’ learning goals, we started to create one-pager information sheets on market-readiness themes. The goal of the process and approach is to be learner-centered, rather than content-driven. While content is available, it is shared based on readiness and willingness of the learner to engage based on individual objectives identified.

This training of trainer’s workshop is designed for refugee farmer incubator interpreters and/or staff who work together to deliver trainings and technical assistance. It is also useful for outside service providers and partners (e.g. extension educators) who provide trainings with refugee farmers using interpreters. The two role-play activities can be used regularly when working with interpreters throughout the season. This teaching resource was developed by the Institute for Social and Economic Development (ISED Solutions)in collaboration with 18 refugee projects from around the country. Refugee farmer training programs across the country provided feedback on this lesson, which is now integrated throughout the guide.

This is a slide show that introduces three insect pests and one disease which singly or together can destroy a zucchini crop (striped cucumber beetle, squash bug, squash vine borer, and powdery mildew). Trap crops and rogueing are suggested as control method strategies. Slides can be printed (and laminated) for field instruction.