This Fall, Empowering Mountain Food Systems with North Carolina Cooperative Extension and the Small Business Center will be offering invaluable training opportunities.  If you are a new farmer or looking to diversify your markets, these trainings will be of benefit to you.

Increasing Farm Economics with a Farm Stand--Farm Tour, September 30, 5:30-7pm

This is an on-site tour with discussion of farm stand economics and design. This multi-generational farm family recently added a farm stand to their operation. This was a long a family dream to add direct-to-consumer sales, and the location was finally right for the Huffman Farm and Roadside Market to come to fruition. This session is not an agritourism event, rather a business development opportunityfor existing farms or start-up farms.Registration

Maximize Farm Production--Farm Tour, October 16, 5:30-7pm

Visit Lee's One Fortune Farm to learn about season extension and a diversified cropping system for maximum production. This tour is targeted to start-up and existing farmers seeking to learn about longer growing seasons and increased income from a richly diversified operation. Registration

Harvesting Opportunities:  Navigating Agritourism for Your Farm Business, October 27, 5:30-7pm, Universal Advanced Manufacturing Center, 639 College Dr, Marion

Join NC State Extension as they talk through agritourism on your farm. We'll kick things off with an introduction of agritourism and assessing if it is right for your farm business. Then we'll move into more specifics on developing and sustaining a business concept, identifying business resources and understanding how to launch and grow your business through customer experiences and marketing.
Registration

For questions, call Molly or Skyler, 828-652-8104.