ONEONTA, N.Y. — The Center for Agricultural Development and Entrepreneurship (CADE) and SUNY Cobleskill invite Farm and Food Business Entrepreneurs to register for their annual business workshop series, which runs from January 25 through March 7, 2020.
“The workshop series is intended to assist agribusinesses with a full range of their business needs–from instruction on developing business plans to secure loans and grants, to polishing up their marketing and branding, to identifying and securing new markets, to developing and piloting new value-added product lines, to supporting farmers–especially dairy farmers–to consider growing new products like grains where there’s a high market demand,” says Jim Manning, CADE’s lead for running the Incubator.
For nearly 30 years, CADE has been working with entrepreneurs to build stronger, more viable farm businesses. SUNY Cobleskill is one of the leading agricultural colleges in the Northeast and is the home of new farm and food business incubation facilities including commercial kitchens and licensed dairy and meat processing facilities. The Farm and Food Business Incubator (FFBI) is a partnership between CADE and SUNY Cobleskill launched in 2016 and is a New York State certified business incubator designated by NYSTAR.
Together, CADE and SUNY Cobleskill identify the technological and commercialization needs of regional producers, conduct outreach and education activities, organize interested businesses into cooperative groups, and secure financial support to move projects into production.
The number of entrepreneurs benefitting from Incubator services has been growing year by year, says Schreiner. “Last year we served nearly 400 clients, up from around 200 the year before.”
Business Planning Workshops: This year’s Business Planning workshop series consists of three consecutive Saturday morning sessions and a final workshop in the Business Planning series brings all of this material together:
January 25: Business Planning 1: Introduction
February 1: Business Planning 2: Operations
February 8: Business Planning 3: Marketing
March 14: Business Planning 4: Putting it all together, including cash flow projections
Value-added Business Workshops: There will also be two special Saturday workshops for entrepreneurs interested in developing a value-added business:
February 22: Product development, rules and regulations, and marketing for value-added products (please note this workshop will take place on the SUNY Cobleskill campus)
March 7: Value-added grains as an alternative enterprise
For complete details on these FREE workshops, and to register, go to: www.cadefarms.org/2020-
Each of the workshop sessions will be facilitated by CADE staff and specialist presenters on the topic at hand. Our workshops are interactive, hands-on, and built around real-world examples and case studies. Participants are encouraged to bring and share examples and questions from their own experiences and plans. There is no charge for any of the workshops in the series, but pre-registration is required. Except where noted, the workshops will be held at CADE’s Oneonta office location at 189 Main Street, 5th Floor, Oneonta, NY.
Additional workshops on special topics will be added during the course of this season – join our email list by clicking here so we can keep you posted:www.cadefarms.org/
Participants are encouraged to attend all of the events in the series, but may also choose only those that are of special interest to them. Participants who attend all four of the Business Planning workshops will be eligible to receive a Farm and Food Business Incubator certificate.
–Center for Agricultural Development and Entrepreneurship (CADE)
and SUNY Cobleskill
For more articles out of New York, click here.