CISA will hold a ten-workshop series on Reducing Risk & Increasing Profitability with Sound Decision Making starting in January. This series will provide farmers and business owners with sound business decision-making practices to reduce their financial risk. These workshops will provide tools for and examples of building decision making into the cycles of farm life to improve long-term profitability and sustainability. Examples in the workshops will be farm related, but the skills and methodology will be relevant to all businesses. Participation in the whole series is encouraged, and to be eligible for free one-on-one consultative support, you must attend three workshops and be a cohort meeting participant.
Dinner will be served at each session. The cost to attend the series is $90 for Local Hero members, or $18 for each individual workshop. The non-member fee is $110 for the series, or $20 for each individual workshop. Register online at buylocalfood.org or contact Devon Whitney-Deal at devon@buylocalfood.org or (413) 665-7100. If cost is a barrier to your participation please feel free to contact Devon to discuss options as we want everyone to be able to get the training they need to effectively operate their business.
Goal Setting and Long-Term Planning
Farmer Missy Bahret from Old Friends Farm will advise on the importance of having goals for your farm operation. A clearly articulated vision allows farmers to make business decisions that help them reach their goals. Business decisions made without thought to the short and long-term goals of the farm run the risk of providing misled results or being harmful to the long-term vision of the farmers. It isn’t easy to clearly identify goals. Learn techniques to help you create your goals for: retirement or farm transfer, inclusion of grown children, financial sustainability, quality of life, and much more. A portion of this meeting will also be devoted to the initial meeting of cohort groups, focused on getting to know each other and identifying goals for the cohort group meetings.