This the third post in Theresa Gould’s series on her organic farming experience in the Stateline Farm Beginnings program.

Each class we attend continues to help and guide us through the process of thinking of our farm as a business.  From strategic planning to identifying our strengths and weaknesses, we are receiving an in- depth business course designed especially for beginning farmers.

Because we were seriously under the weather, my husband and I missed our second class which featured a guest farmer speaking on Biodynamics, as well as a tour of a neighboring farm.   Since we missed the speech, we have assigned reading on the topic.

Also due to illness in the family, only I could attend our third class.  Each class is designed to have us complete sections of our business plan upon the completion of our homework assignments.  This makes the task of writing our business plan a bit less painful since we are able to do it in snippets rather than all at one time.

This last class was very thorough, as was our teacher who has both a business and farming background.  One of the things that he said was, “If you cannot tell someone why they should buy your product or use your services from the 14th floor to the 1st floor in an elevator you will not succeed.”  He actually made us come up with an elevator speech in one of the class exercises.

Another thing he emphasized was the fact that we needed to decide now whether or not our farm is a hobby or a business because in business your goal is to turn a profit.  That means that we also need to decide now who our customer is, the value of our product and the price.  These are keys to our success as organic farmers.

We also toured our host farmer’s farm and these tours are an education in and of themselves as the farmers are more than happy to share from their hearts and experience.  It is truly interesting, as potentially we could be competitors if all of us were to look at it like that.  The beautiful thing about this farming community is that everyone desires to help each other succeed.  That is a rare gift in today’s world.
(photography credit: Theresa Gould)

Related:  previously on altCon
Stateline Farm Beginnings – Our First Class (10.31.09)

farmer’s markets – fresh food year round (9.28.09)

Hawthorn Valley Farm – a favorite altCon biodynamic farm in NY