Completed Project Report

This project increased the viability of Central Oregon small to medium sized producers to supply specialty crops and meats to new direct and wholesale markets.  The outcomes from this project included: 7 workshops focused on business and financial risk management, including step-by-step guidance on writing a business plan; 1 workshop focused on determining production costs of crops with 9 follow-up webinars with an OSU Extension consultant; one-on-one meetings with farmers and a marketing consultant to discuss marketing and branding needs, design, tools and tying into the current regional local food marketing campaign; and on-farm discussions about crop planning and enterprise/market diversification. We predicted a total of 80 agricultural producers be trained through this process and half would develop working farm models; we had 40 participants and 23 of those completed their projects.