Urban Growers Collective provided risk management education for producers underserved by crop insurance through our Farmers for Chicago Incubator with the goal of improving and developing farm operation viability and promoting food security & economic development on Chicago’s South Side.
The Farmers for Chicago Incubator is a hybrid business-training course that allows participants to learn the hands-on fundamentals of farming while simultaneously developing their business plan. Through a series of 36 classroom and hands-on workshops, we educated 13 socially disadvantaged and low resource beginning producers, and provided scholarships to producers not in the program for a total of 513 program participants. Funding provided resources for outreach education and connecting small producers with risk mitigation tools designed to support their success.
The workshops focused on the following risks:
Production Risk: Address risks associated with production and volume predictability to meet market demands and food safety training (FSMA, GAP), and introduction to crop insurance tools.
Marketing Risk: Increase number of urban agriculture businesses operating in urban communities, especially by socially disadvantaged and limited resource individuals.
Financial Risk: Expand capacity through business planning, identifying loan resources, cost analysis, recordkeeping development, and marketing to meet financial goals.