Project Overview
The project
addressed unique marketing and financial risks faced by small-scale fruit and
vegetable producers selling produce through direct-to-consumer outlets. A
total of 146 Tennessee fruit and vegetable producers with gross sales of less
than $50,000 per year received training through five workshops on how to
adapt available educational materials (e.g., Veggie Compass Whole Farm
Profit Management, farmers markets price reports, enterprise budgets) to
their specific operation conditions and how to use these materials to
price products, determine sale volumes, calculate and track expenses, and
evaluate farm profitability. Upon workshop completion, four selected
producers received one-on-one assistance in using tools to price products,
determine sales volumes, evaluate farm profitability, and develop business
plans. According to the follow-up evaluation survey results (i.e., only 20
out of 146 participants completed this survey), six months after training
activities, 14 participants took steps to better manage marketing and financial
risk and four begun a business plan to evaluate profitability when selling
produce through direct-to-consumer outlets. Additionally, about 17
producers that received training through workshops believe improvement in
performance and profitability of their farm businesses in the next few
years have to do with the information they received at the workshops. The low
numbers of growers taking steps to better manage marketing and financial
risk simply reflect the low response rate of our follow-up evaluation
survey due to the fact that this survey was conducted at the end of the
growing season because of the project timeline. If we used survey results to
estimate the number of growers who actually took steps to better manage
marketing and financial risk six months after training then we can say
that is expected that about 102 producers took steps to better manage marketing
and financial risk. Also, based on survey results, we can estimate that about
124 of the growers who attended trainings believe that improvement in
performance and profitability of their farm businesses in the next few
years have to do with the information they received at the workshops.
Number of Participants: 146
PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS
There are no promotional materials available for this project.
EDUCATIONAL MATERIALS
There are no educational materials available for this project.
REPORTS & EVALUATIONS
There are no reports or evaluations available for this project.