This project helped 165 beginner and mid-career farmers in
Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maryland, and Delaware reduce their legal risks
by building knowledge in employment law, business structures, food safety
regulations, leases, contracts, sales agreements, value added, and agritourism
laws, and develop compliance or mitigation strategies.
Educational resources were developed and housed on the national eXtesnion
website. eXtesnion has a Moodle platform that allowed educational resources
developed for this project to be uploaded and housed. These resources included narrated,
interactive PowerPoint presentations, guides to help participants absorb,
process and apply relevant information for their farms, as well as other relevant
resources participants downloaded or printed. State specific information was
developed for each topic.
Participants worked through these self-paced, interactive, videos,
presentations, and exercises and then engaged in four weekly 60 minute
web-based learning sessions. These sessions featured activities to process
the materials, as well as time ask questions of agricultural lawyers.
Participating farmers increased their knowledge in farm
employment laws, observing local and state zoning regulations, selecting or
modifying business structures to limit risk, and creating effective contracts,
leases and sales agreements.
The course was made public after the educational program concluded, thus
accessible to anyone nationwide at https://campus.extension.org/course/view.php?id=1632.