A Little Research

Over the last decade I have tinkered off & on with different business ventures. Well, whether it was not enough money or legal complications or not enough time or support or lack of persistence or maybe... not enough guts. Nothing really came together. Perhaps I just never put everything together.

Well, that is all water under the bridge; nice, muddy, stinky Mississippi River water.

For the past two or three years I have been searching the Internet for information on farming. Well, glory be! There is a TON of information about farming there; not only about biology and the horticultural sciences, but the business side as well. Agricultural professionals, well, generally farmers, not only need to know their art and science, but to succeed, really need to have a firm grasp of business.

Purdue University offers a nice functional site at https://www.agecon.purdue.edu/planner/ . Here, users can use their tool INVenture to enter and manipulate multiple business plans.

One of my favorite places to go is ATTRA (National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service) at http://www.attra.org/ . They have a HUGE amount of documentation about all aspects of sustainable agriculture, including lifestyle, business planning, alternate crops, livestock, and just about everything I may have not mentioned. This is a great resource.

SARE (Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education) at http://www.sare.org/ can provide not just a wealth of information, but also money! Yes, SARE does offer grants. It is a great place to check out.

The National Center for Appropriate Technology (NCAT) at http://www.ncat.org/ offers programs and information for rural development and sustainable agriculture.

Growing New Farmers is a great informational group at http://gnf.bigmindcatalyst.com/cgi/bmc2.pl?tset=std1204&page=pubpg2.html&node=1009 . (Yes that is a long and confusing web address!) GNF is a regional group from the North Eastern United States, focused on helping new farmers start and succeed. They have a great amount of information. Definitely worth checking out.

There is plenty to read and a lot of support out there on the Internet. Whether you are a new farmer, a more experienced ag professional, or like me, someone who wants to farm, there is a ton of information just waiting out there.