Grow Your Small Market Farm™ begins January 21, 2012
We are happy to announce that once again the Grow Your Small Market Farm™ program will be conducted in central Iowa in 2012. Beginning on January 21, the program will be held on Saturdays from 9:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.

This unique business planning program is designed for new or existing farm businesses. If you are interested in raising specialty livestock, vegetables, herbs, flowers, prairie or native grass seed or creating a value-added product on the farm, this program may be for you. The Grow Your Small Market Farm™ is designed to help agricultural entrepreneurs with business tasks, including writing a business plan, developing financial planning skills and learning about specialty food marketing.

The Grow Your Small Market Farm™ program has three phases:

(1) First phase of the program is taught weekly on Saturdays through April. You will work on your business plan, learn important business skills, receive Quick Books Pro software and be trained on it, and learn how to develop your business budget and evaluate it through your financials.

(2) Second phase involves Ms. Brown Huber making one-on-one site visits to each farm business between May and October, to help build on the farm business plan.

(3) And finally, phase three has the participants returning in early December to share their experiences and their future business plans, and to participate in a Grow Your Small Market Farm™ Network Lunch-N-Learn program. The network represents farm businesses with over 400 graduate members.

Here is what past participants say about how they have benefited from the program:

"We would not have experienced our current business growth without the information/relationships developed through the Grow Your Small Market Farm™ class," says Kathy Hohl, owner of Kathy's Pumpkin Patch in Donnellson.

Eric and Ann Franzenberg, Van Horne, agree. "Meeting our classmates and learning about their businesses was invaluable because we got to share in their successes and learn from their mistakes."

The program costs $595/year per farm business. A brochure can downloaded here, or contact Penny Brown Huber at 515.232.1344 or email at penny@growmarketfarm.com

Register before January 16, 2012! Class size limited to 15 farm businesses.

Grow Your Small Market Farm™ is supported by Practical Farmers of Iowa, Golden Hills Resource Conservation & Development, Prairie Rivers of Iowa Resource Conservation & Development, the Iowa Small Business Development Center, an outreach unit of Iowa State University's College of Business, Ames, and Downtown Farmers Market of Des Moines. It is also endorsed by the Iowa Network for Community Agriculture; Women, Food and Agriculture Network; and the Southwest Iowa Food and Farm Initiative.

Our Mission
"To provide strategic business solutions through a web-based network for small, niche and specialty farms."

Our Vision
Our vision is to support the development of successful small, niche and specialty farm businesses around the country that will contribute to building and supplying their local food systems while creating sustainable communities.