Overall, goal was to:
- Provide a general overview of the nuances of starting a value-added agricultural business
- Give instruction in the tools/strategies to mitigate the legal marketing and financial risks associated with developing and selling value-added agricultural products
Primary target audience:
- Small farm/rancher
- General public
What we did:
The prior in-person only program called “Food for Profit” required numerous revisions (e.g. new graphic designs, updated content to reflect changes to regulations and food safety recommendations, evaluation, record, edit, and closed captions to the videos). We revised the educational materials and built out a brand new online, at-your-own-pace course named Maryland Food Ventures.
Future work:
- Add a cost to online self-paced course
- Work with our Department of Health to co-teach the workshop
- Recruit more Extension colleagues to teach specific modules
- Update recordings and handouts as new resources and regulations occur
- Analyze evaluation data
Results:
The online program launched for free, and 439 participants registered (two were paid registrations after 9/30/22). The number participants who only registered without participating further represented (n=314) 72% and 6% (n=27) completed the entire program.
Respondents from our retrospective survey (n=24; 44.45%) had ideas for a food business that would fall under Maryland’s Cottage Food Business, and this program was their first step towards starting a food business (n=16; 29.09%) and first steps to start mitigation strategies towards various risks to their business (n=30; 54.55%), and some had an idea of how to mitigate various risks (n=16; 29.09%).