Progress 09/01/21 to 08/31/24

Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience for this project are beginning farmers who participate in direct marketing their products to consumers. Many of these beginning farmers are veteran farmers, socially disadvantaged, indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) farmers, many of whom are immigant producers. These farms tend to be small and emergining operations. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Education surrounding usage of the MCA by educators and others who work with beginning farmers and ranchers has been delivered via Zoom webinars and is available online for educators. Specifically, training was delivered in December 2022 and 2023. Team members also provided technical support during the piloting season. Based on feedback, an online manual for using the MCA tool in FINPACK was created and became available in December 2023. Additional in-person training about MCA to educators and others who work with beginning farmers and ranchers was delivered in the spring of 2024 at the National Extension Risk Management Conference and the National Farm Viability Conference. Attendees learned about the importance of MCA and how to use the standalone beta tool with their producers. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?CFFM provided a feedback session to piloting educators to not only receive feedback, but also to share instances of the types of operations using the MCA. MCA benchmarking became available in winter 2023 and data for reporting in FINBIN was submitted by educators in March 2024. MCA data will continue to be gathered and submitted to FINBIN in subsequent years beyond the project. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? 1. Help beginning farmers improve their marketing decisions by developing an app that will let them evaluate the returns from various marketing channels, and thus make adjustments to their marketing plans to improve their profitability. The FINPACK team worked closely with a development team representing different marketing approaches and different regions of the country to ensure the Market Channel Analysis (MCA) would meet the needs of diversified farm marketers. Once the beta version was agreed to, the FINPACK team developed the tool in FINPACK. The building of MCA in FINPACK was completed and released in fall 2022. The tool was piloted in the winter of 2022-23 by several educators working with diversified farm marketers. Once the winter was completed, we organized these educators for a feedback session. Based on this feedback, the next stage of development commenced including how to interpret the results that were being produced by the MCA. Education on the MCA tool in FINPACK was completed for educators and others who work with beginning farmers and ranchers. Educators who work with producers can now enter data into FINPACK MCA to populate benchmarking data within FINBIN. Educators who work with producers submitted FINPACK MCA data for the first time in March 2024. This data will be used to populate benchmarking data in FINBIN. A beta version of the MCA standalone application in Excel was created to work through development issues prior to turning development over to third party developers. Feedback was gathered from educators and other agricultural professionals to make improvements. For example, labor is a major expense for fruit and vegetable growers, so the employee section of the tool was expanded to give more relevant information. We worked with a third party developer to create a MCA standalone application called My Market Profit. The application was completed in Fall 2024. At the time of this report, there were 80 users in the short time since product release. 2. Help beginning farmers and ranchers better determine prices for their products by developing an app that will help them analyze their costs of production, evaluate desired profit margins and compare prices at their desired profit margins to what others are charging for similar products. Design work on the MCA standalone app utilized lessons learned while developing the FINPACK MCA. Special emphasis was placed on separating revenues by market channels as well as providing reports on labor. In an effort to simplify data entry, the design team has explored ways to incorporate price information from organizations like Food4All and Square. My Market Profit design included ways to separate revenues by market channels and included the ability to track labor by employee or employee group, including wages paid, labor hours, and how labor hours are split between production and marketing. These items were designed based on lessons learned while developing the FINPACK MCA. Producers can track their individual products sold at each market, including price and quantity sold. Producers can also see the percentage of products unsold at each market. The design team also explored ways to incorporate price information from organizations like Food4All and Square. The CFFM team also created a standalone app called CropCost, which helps producers identify and calculate their cost of production. This tool has report types for entering either conventional crops or specialty crops and allows users to calculate their cost of production on areas as small as square foot. By knowing a cost of production, users can then determine the minimum they would need to charge to at least cover their production expenses. This tool was released in the Fall of 2024 with training to commence in winter of 2024 and 2025. 3. Test these tools with at least 20 beginning farmers and ranchers, including immigrant farmers, to modify and ensure that they meet the needs of beginning farmers marketing directly to consumers. We collaborated with The Good Acre food hub and Colorado State University to test the MCA tool with beginning farmers that market directly to consumers. Both of these organizations struggled to work directly with farmers using this tool. The MCA tool in FINPACK was tested with producers in New Hampshire that market directly to consumers. We also received feedback from Minnesota Farm Business Management instructors who used the tool with their farmers to further modify the tool to meet producer needs. We have also received feedback from veteran farmers that market directly to consumers and plan to incorporate their feedback as future improvements to the project. Based on feedback from these farms, updates have been made and planned for future tool developments. For example, the CFFM team has begun to work with Cornell University, who has a Square interface that would allow users to quickly import their data into FINPACK and My Market Profit. 4. Develop a component for benchmarking marketing channels in FINBIN, the national farm financial management benchmarking database, that will allow any beginning farmer to evaluate the returns other farmers receive from various marketing channels. Benchmarking capabilities for market channels were developed for FINBIN and began to be available winter 2023. Feedback from educators who piloted the MCA guided the development of benchmarking reports. MCA data was gathered for FINBIN for the first time from Minnesota Farm Business Management instructors in spring 2024. As more data is collected in subsequent years, market channel analysis reports will become available in FINBIN. Individual market channel benchmarking will become available when a large enough sample size is collected, beyond the timeline of this project. 5. Develop an online training curriculum that will train and provide resources to help both educators and farmers learn how to use the marketing channel analysis and product pricing tools. Education informing usage of the MCA by educators and others who work with beginning farmers and ranchers has been delivered via Zoom webinars and is available online for educators. An online manual for using the MCA tool in FINPACK was created and became available in winter 2023. A help manual for My Market Profit was developed, along with videos explaining how to use the tool. 6. Train BFRDP projects and others who work with beginning farmers and ranchers how to use the market channel and product pricing tools to help the farmers and ranchers they work with to improve profits. CFFM has provided online training to educators who work with beginning farmers and ranchers on using the market channel tool in FINPACK through Zoom webinars and at the National Agricultural Marketing Summit in fall 2023. CFFM also provided training on the use of the standalone beta tool in spring 2024 at the National Extension Risk Management Education Conference and in the fall of 2024 at the National Farm Viability Conference. 7. Promote the availability and use of these tools to beginning farmers and ranchers and those who work with them throughout the country. The CFFM team promoted the availability of the FINPACK MCA tool at the 2023 National Ag Marketing Summit Further training in December 2023 was offered to educators for the FINPACK MCA tool. The CFFM team further promoted the availability of both the FINPACK MCA tool and the standalone beta tool at the 2024 National Extension Risk Management Education Conference. Availability of the standalone beta tool was promoted at the 2024 National Farm Viability Conference. CFFM team members have been selected to present on the availability of My Market Profit at the 2024 National Ag Marketing Summit. Availability of My Market Profit has been announced through social media channels and the CFFM news emails that go to hundreds of educators and lenders.

Publications

Progress 09/01/22 to 08/31/23

Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience for this project are beginning farmers who participate in direct marketing their products to consumers. Many of these beginning farmers are veteran farmers, socially disadvantaged, indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) farmers, many of whom are immigant producers. These farms tend to be small and emergining operations. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Education surrounding usage of the MCA by educators and others who work with beginning farmers and ranchers has been delivered via Zoom webinars and is available online for educators. Specificallly, training was delivered in December 2022. Team members also provided technical support during the piloting season. Based on feedback, nn online manual for using the MCA tool in FINPACK is in the draft stage and will be available winter 2023. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?CFFM provided a feedback session to piloting educators to not only receive feedback, but also to share instances of the types of operations using the MCA. In the next year, MCA benchmarking will be available and reporting on. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In November of 2023, team members presented on MCA in FINPACK at the 2023 National Ag Marketing Summit and discussed the tool with participants. In the next year, we will test the MCA tool in FINPACK by at least 20 growers we have connected with through The Good Acre food hub in MN, the Colorado beginning farmer program, Building Farmers, or other educational farm financial management efforts in MN and other states. The information collected from The Good Acre food hub will be collected through alternative methods, such as through working directly with CFFM team members or through other Minnesota Farm Business Management educators, rather than The Good Acre employees. The stand alone app design has commenced, including discussing data sources for tool users, and development of data entry for users. Promotion will continue to be important as we continue to test and build the usage of the tools.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? 1. Help beginning farmers improve their marketing decisions by developing an app that will let them evaluate the returns from various marketing channels, and thus make adjustments to their marketing plans to improve their profitability. The FINPACK team worked closely with a development team to ensure the Market Channel Analysis (MCA) would meet the needs of diversified farm marketers. Once the beta version was agreed to, the FINPACK team developed the tool in FINPACK. The building of MCA in FINPACK was completed and released in fall 2022. The tool was piloted in the winter of 2022-23 by several educators working with diversified farm marketers. Once the winter was completed, we organized these educators for a feedback session. Based on this feedback, the next stage of development commenced including how to interpret the results that was being produced by the MCA. Education on the MCA tool in FINPACK was completed for educators and others who work with beginning farmers and ranchers. Educators who work with producers can now enter data into FINPACK MCA to populate benchmarking data within FINBIN. 2. Help beginning farmers and ranchers better determine prices for their products by developing an app that will help them analyze their costs of production, evaluate desired profit margins and compare prices at their desired profit margins to what others are charging for similar products. Design work on the MCA standalone app has commenced. Based on lessons learned while developing the FINPACK MCA, special emphasis is being placed on separating revenues by market channels as well as providing reports on labor. In an effort to simplify data entry, the design team has explored ways to incorporate price information from organizations like Food4All and Square. 3. Test these tools with at least 20 beginning farmers and ranchers, including immigrant farmers, to modify and ensure that they meet the needs of beginning farmers marketing directly to consumers. We are continuing to collaborate with organizations such as The Good Acre food hub and Colorado State University to test the MCA tool with beginning farmers that market directly to consumers. We have received feedback from Minnesota Farm Business Management instructors who have used the tool with their farmers to further modify the tool to meet producer needs. 4. Develop a component for benchmarking marketing channels in FINBIN, the national farm financial management benchmarking database, that will allow any beginning farmer to evaluate the returns other farmers receive from various marketing channels. Benchmarking capability for market channels is being developed for FINBIN and will be available winter 2023. Feedback from educators who piloted the MCA have guided the development of benchmarking reports. 5. Develop an online training curriculum that will train and provide resources to help both educators and farmers learn how to use the marketing channel analysis and product pricing tools. Education surrounding usage of the MCA by educators and others who work with beginning farmers and ranchers has been delivered via Zoom webinars and is available online for educators. An online manual for using the MCA tool in FINPACK is in the draft stage and will be available winter 2023. 6. Train BFRDP projects and others who work with beginning farmers and ranchers how to use the market channel and product pricing tools to help the farmers and ranchers they work with to improve profits. CFFM has provided online training to educators who work with beginning farmers and ranchers on using the market channel tool in FINPACK through Zoom webinars and at the National Agricultural Marketing Summit in fall 2023. 7. Promote the availability and use of these tools to beginning farmers and ranchers and those who work with them throughout the country. The CFFM team promoted the availability of the FINPACK MCA tool at the 2023 National Ag Marketing Summit Further training in December 2023 has been planned and will be promoted for the FINPACK MCA tool.

Publications

Progress 09/01/21 to 08/31/22

Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience for this project are beginning farmers who participate in direct marketing their products to consumers. Many of these beginning farmers are veteran farmers, socially disadvantaged, indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) farmers, many of whom are immigant producers. These farms tend to be small and emergining operations. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?At this time, the focus has been on tool development which included developing a design team. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?In October 2022, team members had a posterat the 2022 National Ag Marketing Summit and discussed the tools with participants. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In the next year, we will release the FINPACK MCA to be used by educators in the winter of 2022-23. These tools will be tested and piloted by at least 20 growers through The Good Acre food hub in MN, growers participating in the Colorado beginning farmer program, Building Farmers, and through other educational farm financial efforts in MN. The stand alone app design has commenced including discussing data sources for tool users. Promotion will be of heightened importance in the next year as we work to test and build usage of these tools.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? 1. Help beginning farmers improve their marketing decisions by developing an app that will let them evaluate the returns from various marketing channels, and thus make adjustments to their marketing plans to improve their profitability. As of November 2022, the design team for the Market Channel Analysis (MCA) had been convened and building of the MCA in FINPACK had commenced. The MCA was scheduled to be released in FINPACK in later November 2022. Education surrounding usage of the MCA by educators and others who work with beginning farmers and ranchers in FINPACK is in draft stage. Once released, educators will work with producers to enter data into the FINPACK MCA to populate benchmarking data within FINBIN. 2. Help beginning farmers and ranchers better determine prices for their products by developing an app that will help them analyze their costs of production, evaluate desired profit margins, and compare prices at their desired profit margins to what others are charging for similar products. As part of the MCA design team, design work has begun on this standalone app. 3. Test these tools with at least 20 beginning farmers and ranchers, including immigrant farmers, to modify and ensure that they meet the needs of beginning farmers marketing directly to consumers. As the MCA is released, testing will commence. 4. Develop a component for benchmarking marketing channels in FINBIN, the national farm financial management benchmarking database, that will allow any beginning farmer to evaluate the returns other farmers receive from various marketing channels. Once data has been collected from the FINPACK MCA, data will be aggregated and made available in FINBIN. 5. Develop an online training curriculum that will train and provide resources to help both educators and farmers learn how to use the marketing channel analysis and product pricing tools. Education surrounding usage of the MCA by educators and other who work with beginning farmers and ranchers in FINPACK is in draft stage. 6. Train BFRDP projects and others who work with beginning farmers and ranchers how to use the market channel and product pricing tools to help the farmers and ranchers they work with to improve profits. Education surrounding usage of the MCA by educators and others who work with beginning farmers and ranchers in FINPACK is in draft stage. Once training has been completed, the CFFM team will announceand promote training on these tools. 7. Promote the availability and use of these tools to beginning farmers and ranchers and those who work with them throughout the country. In October 2022, team members promoted the FINPACK MCA at the 2022 National Ag Marketing Summit. Once training has been completed, the CFFM team will announce and promote training on these tools.

Publications