This winter's edition of the FarmSmart Farm Business Planning class is moving online.  Check back here for more details in the fall!
This winter, give yourself the time and space to think about where you're running to.

"We're always running, running, running, and sometimes I just want to stop and really think about where we're running to." One of the farmers I work with made this comment to me last spring, and it struck me as a sentiment that's resonant with many of my other clients as well.
If you're craving the time and headspace to reconnect to the reason you got into farming in the first place while brushing up on your business skills, the FarmSmart online business planning class (operated in conjunction with the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation, and Forestry) is for you.

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• Over the course of 15 online modules, you will get a chance to:


• Reconnect with your "why" that got you into farming in the first place.
• Establish/revise your vision statement, AKA "Where you want to be."
• Brush up on your bookkeeping, financial, and personnel management skills.
• Determine which parts of your business are helping you toward your vision - and which are not.
• Restrategize your branding
• Develop a plan to to get you to your vision.

Online and self-paced.  The entire course is online and prerecorded, meaning that you can advance through the material at your own convenience.  Each module features a recorded lecture, activities to help explore the content and worksheets/next steps that enable you to apply the  content to your own farm.  Course participants will also gain access and to a business plan template and spreadsheets for generating financial forecasts, along with instructional videos.
Click here to download a copy of the course outline.
Who Should Take this course? This course is designed for farmers with at least 2 years' of experience who are ready to restrategize their farms' business plan.
Who Should Not Take this Course? People who are just starting their farms will not be able to take full advantage of the course material. Maine is lucky to have many good business planning options for beginning farmers, including the "So You Want to Farm in Maine?" course offered by the Cooperative Exension and the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners' Farm Beginnings course.
More details about the course will be forthcoming in fall 2020.  Contact Jed to learn more.

What farmers have said about previous editions of this course:
"Well worth the time and money, wish would have taken it when first started farming. . . Course is informal with like minded students and instructor. Therefore discussions are relevant and enlightening, as opposed to standard course where applications are more standardized."

"This course was a good use of time. It helped me to think about my business in ways I hadn’t before. It introduced me to tools that are essential for the growth of my farm business. It helped me to realize what aspects of my business are working and which are not. Also helped me to assess value for my time and energy which I hadn’t done before. Highly recommend this course to all farmers new and old."
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​"It is a very worth while course and every farmer should have these business skills."

Got questions?
Click here to contact Jed.