Equipping farmers to build resilient farms and communities.
How do you like to learn?
In early 2018 we held listening session across the state to hear what barriers and challenges intermediate farmers in years 5-10 are facing while starting their farming operations.

Now that we’ve gathered this information and have tested a few ideas, we we want to gather your feedback to create programming that helps intermediate beginners find solutions to their
challenges.

Please follow this link to a short feedback form that will allow us to understand what kind of program will help you. From this we will plan and implement some efforts based on your feedback.
“I have found the need for continued guidance on labor management, business direction, improving
efficiency, settling on the right markets and more.” J ordan Scheibel
Provide your Feedback on these Activities
Know Your Cost to Grow
Program designed to help diversified vegetable farmers determine their crop-specific costs of production. Knowing your costs of production can provide important insights into changes you can make to your production systems, pricing and crop mix that will increase your overall profits.
Shared Learning Calls
These calls are designed to allow farmers to share their experience and foster a peer-to-peer learning environment. Each call has a theme or topics with a short presentation to learn more about what others have done to overcome or hone this skill. 
In-depth workshop or course
This could be day-long or shorter workshops over a number of weeks that are geared towards learning more about a specific topic of skill.
Annual Conference
Registration for the 2020 annual conference, Reclaiming Resilience, is here! You can now view the speakers, sessions, short courses and more on our website. Join us Jan. 16-18, 2020, in Ames.

As we embark on 2020, Reclaiming Resilience will examine the current state of our farms and our food systems. This endeavor is not about going backwards in time or unraveling progress. It’s about reclaiming resilience to help family farms survive into the future.
Check out these resources for beginning farmers
We have recently updated our collection of business, financial, production and technical assistance resources to help aspiring and beginning farmers further their business goals. You can access them by clicking on the icons below.

We will continue to build this list and add new resources as they are available. If you see any resources missing that you find helpful, please share them with us. You can send them to Greg Padget at greg@practicalfarmers.org .
Reliable farm labor is essential to a growing farm business. Join Rachel Armstrong from Farm Commons for a webinar where we will discuss the process of legally hiring employees and explore strategies for building a motivated and reliable farm workforce.

Managing financial records and bookkeeping is challenging. Accounting software like QuickBooks can make the process much easier. Learn how to set up and use QuickBooks to streamline bookkeeping for your farm.

January 24-25
St. Paul, MN
This innovative conference focuses primarily on the needs and interests of farmers of color and immigrant farmers, and supports their contributions to local economic development and building healthy communities, but all farmers are welcome to attend.

The Farm Lease Builder guides you through important common issues in farmland leases and helps you create a roadmap for your landlord/tenant relationship. The Farm Lease Builder creates a lease draft that is customized to your needs.
Upcoming PFI Events
Jan. 16-17:  Conference -   Short Courses  | Ames

Jan 17-18:  Conference -   PFI Annual Conference 2020  | Ames
‌
Practical Farmers devotes great effort to sharing our members’ knowledge with fellow members, as well as with the broader public. The more people know about concrete ways farmers and friends of farmers can improve our farms, food and communities, the more they will be motivated to take action.
More people are realizing the value of farmer-to-farmer learning. As a result, our membership is at an all-time high of 4,100 members.  Your donation can help us reach more people.
Labor4Learning 
Labor4Learning helps beginning farmers get paid on-the-job training with experienced farmers, and pays experienced farmers for their time and effort.

Savings Incentive Program
Savings Incentive Program is a 2-year program that pairs beginning and aspiring farmers with experienced farmer mentors; provides targeted learning and peer networking opportunities; offers business planning support and guidance. All this while you save money that we match dollar for dollar, up to $2,400, to use toward the purchase of a farm asset.

Find A Farmer
Find A Farmer allows for a comfortable place to start anonymous conversations with land-seekers or landowners. Search for users in a particular area that fit your specifications and begin the discussion.

Find A Farmer is FREE and available for anyone with internet access! No membership is required.
 
Looking for more?
Greg Padget
Next Generation Director
(515) 232-5661