Farm and Business Planning Courses
These courses cover topics relating to business planning and decision making when designing and planning your farm.
1000: Goals & Action Planning for Your Upstart Farm
To get started, let's assess your farm goals, analyze your current position, and organize an official timeline to keep things moving forward. By the end of this course, you'll have an action plan and mission statement!
1020: The Four Markets
Upstart Farmers primarily serve four markets: Farmers' Markets, CSAs, Restaurants, and Grocery Stores. In this course, learn the benefits, challenges, and success strategies of each.
1021: Social Media Marketing for Farmers
In this course, learn the most effective secrets for using strategic social media marketing to promote your farm, conducting market research, and advertising your farm on a small budget.
1022: Farmers’ Market Success
In this course, you'll learn the steps of getting accepted into a competitive farmers' market and then how to make a good, lasting impression once you’re in. This includes how to impress not only all of the customers at the market, but also your market manager and even your fellow vendors.
1030: Choosing Your Production Method
In this course, you will learn about DWC, NFT, media beds, Bato buckets, aeroponics and vertical production including how each works and which are right for your farm.
1039: Market Research for Farmers
Before writing your business plan, pulling money out of savings, or even trying to get an investor, you must determine if your business idea is feasible through market research. Learn how to conduct market research as a farmer in this course.
1040: Intro to Business Planning
When you're looking to start an Upstart Farm, a business plan is essential. This course will walk you through the 6 key sections of a business plan and how to research and write each.
1050: Funding Your Farm
In this course, you will organize prerequisite documents for funding, explore options to organically scale or self-fund your business, learn the basics of crowdfunding, discover USDA microloans for farmers, and identify potential grant opportunities for your farm.
1055: Sales for Farmers
Most people don't get into farming to become a salesperson. But, when it comes down to it, part of your role as a farmer is to sell. Being a good salesperson is actually easier than you think, and it can be one of the keys to making your business a success. And we’re going to show you how.
1060: Farm Compliance and Food Safety
If you're selling your produce, odds are that you'll need to understand Food Safety/HACCP, sanitation procedures, compliance, and Food Defense before many markets accept you. Get the info you need in this course.
1070: Farm Insurance: Finding the Right Policy
In this webinar course, we’re going to help you navigate farm insurance and understand how to get the right policy for your modern farm.
1091: HVAC Design for Indoor Growers
This course will introduce HVAC design concepts and systems used for managing the climate of an indoor growing operation, including information on systems, sizing, designs, costs, and more.
1099: Lighting for Upstart Farmers
Light and lighting is hugely important for planning your vertical farm. Learn the fundamentals of lighting for Upstart Farmers in this course.
Crowdfunding Campaign Success – Mini Course
This webinar course dives deep into the most important elements for having a successful campaign including things like how to authentically earn community support, what gifts to give, how to master your social and email promotions, and even how to turn your campaign success into long-term sales.
Greenhouses for Small Farmers – Mini Course
A greenhouse can be a rather intimidating investment - not just because cost, but also because it involves a lot of decision making which can impact your ability to grow crops efficiently. In this course, we'll answer your most urgent questions and help simplify the process.
Intro to Aquaponics – Mini Course
This course focuses on how things work in aquaponic systems, why they work that way, and what this means for your decision to go with hydroponics or aquaponics.
Law for Upstart Farmers – Part 1: Intro to Organics – Mini Course
In this course, we'll focus on the relevant laws surrounding organic production in the United States, including labeling, pros and cons, practices and issues facing organic producers, and more.
Organic Hydroponic Advocacy – Mini Course
In this course, we'll discuss the organic industry and markets, and the debate of hydroponics organics. We'll look at the answers that policy makers have created to the containerized organic agriculture question and how that affects real farmers.
SketchUp Basics – Mini Course
When planning your greenhouse or warehouse it is an advantage to have a tool that creates visuals of various setups. This mini course will give a basic introduction to SketchUp and how it can be used to plan a farm.
The Farm to Food Truck Model – Mini Course
Starting out small? Want to have a successful farming business, but maintain flexibility? Looking for a creative way to serve your market? Then the farm to food truck model might be for you. By the end of this online course, you'll know whether or not farm to food truck is a good business model for your personal and business goals and your market, and how to get started and succeed with it.