Grow Your Farm Coming to St. Clair MO in Sept

Have a creative farming idea?  Need practical guidance to help turn your farm into a profitable business?

If you answered yes to these questions, then the Grow Your Farm course is right for you. Grow Your Farm will help you translate your farming ideas into a successful business venture.

Hear what Grow Your Farm farm mentors Greg and Nancy Rasmussen have to say about the Grow Your Farm course.

Course specifics
Grow Your Farm is designed for prospective farmers, beginners with some experience and seasoned farmers who want to make a "new beginning" with alternative farming methods. MU Extension specialists and experienced, innovative farmers teach the sessions.  Grow Your Farm meets 11 times over a 3 month time frame. Classes include eight seminars with three farm tours.

Course objectives
Information on production techniques is relatively easy to find and use, but what many landowners need is help to develop the farm as a profitable business. With this in mind, Grow Your Farm is designed to assist you, the producer, in creating and planning your farm as a business.

This course will help you:

• Identify and prioritize personal and family values and use them as the foundation for the farm mission statement and goals.
• Learn how to "walk the farm" to assess the land and its facilities.
• Learn to evaluate the feasibility of particular farm opportunities.
• Understand the components of a business plan and create one of your own.
• Understand financial aspects of a business plan and review popular tools to manage financial records.
• Consider different types of agricultural marketing and draft a marketing plan.
• Become familiar with a variety of legal issues that pertain to farming enterprises.
• Network with other farmers.