Register Now: Holistic Financial Planning – Building Farm Profit into the Picture

Cornell Small Farms Program is offering a course on Holistic Financial Planning!

From Cornell Small Farms Program: “Have you been struggling to make your farm operation profitable without driving yourself into the ground? Our financial planning course will help you with the delicate balancing act that all farmers must succeed in: balancing healthy profits with healthy land and a healthy farm family and personal life. Take our Holistic Financial Planning online course and learn how to make financial decisions toward farm and family values and goals.”

This course is intended for farmers with at least one season of management experience and some record of their farm’s income and expenses (even if this information is stored on scraps of paper in a shoebox). This course will move at an intense pace, with time to catch up at the end. If you have not yet started farming, you are welcome to take the course, but you may need to do extra legwork to research realistic potential expenses and income for your planned enterprises.

If you complete all aspects of this course, you will:

• Write a holistic farm and family goal that expresses what matters most
• Practice a framework for making decisions that moves you towards your goals
• Create an annual budget that prioritizes your goals and limits your expenses

The bulk of the course happens on your own time, with discussions, readings, and assignments in Teachable, our online course platform. To add to the experience, live webinars will be held during the live instruction period — January 16 – February 20 on Tuesday evenings at 7 p.m. ET. These webinars allow you to meet on a weekly basis to learn from presenters and ask questions in real time. If you miss one, they are always recorded and posted for later viewing.

Meet the Instructors:

Phil Metzger is a farm and natural resources development consultant, retired from a 31-year career as a Resource Conservationist with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service. Phil instructs on various topics including: biological monitoring, land planning, farm, personal & business financial planning, goal setting, and improved decision making. He is a certified educator of Holistic Management (HM) and has personally practiced HM for over 20 years.

Allyson Angelini has a degree in Sustainable Agriculture from UMass Amherst and has worked on dozens of farms in New England and Italy. She owns and operates Full Heart Farm, which she purchased in 2012 at the age of 24. She serves as a mentor for Holistic Management International and is a member of the National Young Farmers Coalition. Allyson was named one of CT Magazine’s 40 Under 40 in 2015, as well as eWomen Network’s Emerging Leader of the Year for 2015. In BF 203, Allyson shares the details of how she plans and manages her farm’s finances using Holistic Financial Planning.

Register Here: https://lists.cahnrs.wsu.edu/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/r/sjcfarmandfood/378479496790/info/sjiagguild.com/