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.
Metrics Worth Looking at to Measure Profitability and Success:
Benneth Phelps from The Carrot Project will provide farmers with applicable and effective financial management tools that can be used to make business decisions. These tools can be easily used by farmers to implement into farm business operations, to improve productivity, reduce costs, increase net farm income, and improve overall quality of life. This class will use real-world experience of farmers and their service providers to describe farm operation experiences, provide insight into what has worked, what hasn’t, and why. The class will also review the concept of benchmarking, both against your own farm and against others.