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Farmers can increase income by expanding small operations with creative new businesses
Farms that sell only fresh produce are dependent on buyers for markets and pricing. The UC Cooperative Extension small farms team in Fresno and Tulare counties believes farmers can earn more money by taking production a step further, by adding extra value to their products with processing, preserving and packaging the produce.
UC Cooperative Extension small farms advisor Ruth Dahlquist-Willard, the UC Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program, and Fresno State's Office of Community and Economic Development brought a group of small farmers together for a workshop in January to learn about resources available to help them develop value-added businesses.
“Value-added products can improve the bottom line of a small family farm by bringing in additional income and diversifying production,” Dahlquist-Willard said. “We wanted to connect beginning farmers and Southeast Asian farmers to programs that could help them develop and market value-added products from their farms.”
The value-added workshop included presentations from a farmer with a successful value-added business, government agencies and non-profit organizations. Alternative lenders such as Fresno Madera Farm Credit, who provided funding for the workshop, also presented on loans available for small-scale farms. UCCE agricultural assistant Michael Yang translated the presentations into Hmong.
Kingsburg organic farmer Paul Buxman opened the workshop with his personal journey into value-added production. Buxman's story begins in 1994 when a spring hail storm swept through his farm.
“The hail marked all my fruit. I had 100,000 pounds of plums, peaches and nectarines I could not sell. What could I do?” Buxman said. “An idea came to my head like a lightbulb. Take the fruit, cut off the scar, cook it and make jam.”
The new venture wasn't an instant success. Buxman found himself delivering unsold jam that first year to a Bay Area homeless mission, pulling up right behind a bread truck.
“Man does not live by bread alone,” he said with a laugh.
But each year he and his wife improved their product, and the market grew.
“This jam is so addictive, it's barely legal,” Buxman said. His “Sweet Home Ranch Homemade Preserves” costs $2 per jar to make, and sells for $5 each.
Buxman suggested the farmers at the UCCE workshop to try making a value-added product. The new products could be spices, food, cleaning products, handicrafts, and even experiences, such a teaching a skill.
“You have so much more to offer people than you realize,” Buxman said.
During the subsequent panel discussion, Kiel Schmidt outlined the support that Food Commons Fresno can provide. An important element is the opportunity to rent the organization's commercial kitchen to create value-added merchandise to health department specifications. Patti Chang of Feed the Hunger Foundation said her organization provides technical assistance and loans to new ventures that can carry out their mission of reducing hunger and helping people out of poverty.
“We worked with two Oaxacan women in Madera who didn't want to be field workers anymore,” Chang said. “They wanted to make a product from their culture: mole. They became a certified business, opened a bank account at Wells Fargo and opened a small restaurant in a grocery story. We helped them negotiate the lease.”
Eduardo Gonzalez of Fresno State's San Joaquin Valley Rural Development Center said his facility can help small businesses with marketing, website design and getting value-added products to market.
Dawn Goliik of the U.S. Small Business Administration said the organization can help small farmers start, grow and run businesses with training, mentoring and counseling.
“It's all free to you,” Golik said.
The UCCE small farms team also has a marketing associate, Lorena Ramos, who is available for farmers to contact regarding value-added product development.
Presentations and one-on-one consultations were offered by a variety of organizations that can loan funds, including Fresno Madera Farm Credit, Access + Capital, Northern California Community Loan Fund, California FarmLink, USDA Farm Service Agency and Valley Small Business Development Corporation.
The workshop ended with a presentation on California's Cottage Food Law, which allows residents to process and prepare foods in their own home kitchens to sell to the public. Some of the home-prepared products the law permits are jams, jellies, cookies, cakes and fudge, dried fruit, vegetables and spices. A complete list of approved foods is on the state website.
The Cottage Food Law is for businesses with a gross annual income below $50,000, which have no more than one employee (not including household members).
“There is no charge, just paperwork to fill out,” said Matthew Gore with Fresno County Environmental Health. “This isn't difficult, and we're here to help you with the forms.”
Dahlquist-Willard said an important part of her UC Cooperative Extension program is the connections she and Yang can help farmers make with the myriad services available to them.
“We encourage small farmers to contact us in our Fresno office,” she said.
Contact information:
Ruth Dahlquist-Willard, (559) 241-7515, rdahlquistwillard@ucanr.edu
Michael Yang, (559) 241-7523, myang@ucanr.edu
Lorena Ramos, (559) 241-7524, mlramose@ucanr.edu
Farmers learn, connect, tour and taste in Sacramento
Running a small-scale farm or ranch isn't easy; it requires hard-learned skills, innovative marketing and a supportive community. Farmers and ranchers from all over California will join with farmers' market managers, educators, small farm advocates, and some of the most creative of Sacramento's Farm to Fork chefs at the California Small Farm Conference, held this year at the DoubleTree Hotel in Sacramento from March 5 to March 8, 2016.
For three days, about 400 attendees will join workshops, explore with field courses, network with colleagues and enjoy a few social events. The now-annual conference was started by the UC Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR) Small Farm Program in 1982 as a unique opportunity for small-scale farmers to learn, network and grow their businesses. UC ANR specialists, advisors and staff continue to contribute to the conference as members of the board of directors and as educators presenting science-based information at workshops and field courses.
Sunday, March 6, features all-day field courses and short courses, giving participants a chance for deeper understanding and multiple perspectives as they explore their choice of four different topics. Two of the courses this year will be led by UC ANR educators or staff.
For the on-site short course, "Starting a SUCCESSFUL Specialty Food Business," Shermain Hardesty, a UCCE specialist in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at UC Davis (and leader of the UC Small Farm Program) teams up with Linda Harris, a UCCE specialist in Food Safety and Microbiology at UC Davis, Dan Sullivan, a specialty food business expert and specialty food producers, Jason Poole of Preservation & Co. and Courtney Smith of Bloomingcamp Ranch. UCCE Agritourism Coordinator Penny Leff will lead a field course named, "Direct Marketing: Farmers' Markets, Farm Stands, U-Pick and Wine Tasting," that will visit and learn from some of Sacramento region's expert practitioners of these various direct marketing venues.
Sacramento region food and beverage fans are invited to attend the "Taste of Sacramento" Tasting Reception on Monday, March 7, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. The Tasting Reception is the culinary and social highlight of the California 
Online registration for the conference has now closed, but on-site registration is welcome! For more information, see the California Small Farm Conference website, or phone (888) 712-4188. See you there!
Photo of Guido Frosini, True Grass Farms, by Janae Lloyd, a winner of the farm conference 2015 photo contest.
San Diego farmers: Help plan California Small Farm Conference
The conference will be March 7 - 10, 2015 at the Marriott Mission Valley in San Diego County.
Attracting approximately 500 participants yearly, the California Small Farm Conference is the state's premier gathering of small-scale farmers, farmers' market managers, university researchers, federal and state agriculture agencies, agriculture students, food policy advocates, consumers and others.
The important work of the Local Planning Committee volunteers ensures the success of the California Small Farm Conference. We are looking for dedicated individuals with a passion for agriculture, who work or live in the San Diego area, to join our 2015 Local Planning Committee!
There are still openings for several volunteers to participate in planning by taking leadership roles on conference committees. These "super volunteers" will receive complementary registration and meals at the conference.
We need your input on local contacts for speakers, workshop topics, field tours and the tasting event! The second meeting of the Local Planning Committee will be held on Monday, September 15 at the San Diego Marriott Mission Valley from 12:30 – 2:30 p.m.
Click here to RSVP to the September 15 Local Planning Meeting.
Questions? Contact Jennifer Roth, Conference Coordinator, 916-508-8937 or jroth@californiafarmconference.com
Discover California Farms... ...at California Fairs!
A guide for specialty crop promotion and education at California district and county fairs
Almost everyone in California enjoys our county and district fairs, but most people attending California fairs don't know much about local farmers or the crops that are grown in their own region. Many fairs and members of California agricultural communities are trying new ways to connect local farmers with fair attendees.
Specialty crops – fruits, vegetables, nuts, herbs, flowers, honey, and the products created from them – are a big deal in California. California farmers feed their local communities, provide about half of the fruits and vegetables eaten in the United States, and export their crops and products around the world. Fairs attract thousands of visitors from urban, suburban and even rural communities who have never met a farmer or visited a farm and often do not know what is growing in fields and orchards surrounding their communities. California fairs offer opportunities for the agricultural community to connect with these visitors.
In 2013 and 2014, the California Department of Food and Agriculture's Division of Fairs and Expositions collaborated with the University of California Small Farm Program to organize 20' by 40' interactive, fun and educational exhibits at four different California District Fairs to teach about local farms, crops and farmers' markets and promote fresh fruits, vegetables, nuts, herbs, flowers and honey to fair-goers.
Project staff created a guide to specialty crop education and promotion at county fairs, based on the experience of the many farmers, educators, fair officials and community groups participating in that project. The guide is funded by a California Department of Food and Agriculture Specialty Crop Block Grant, as part of the "Mobile Agriculture Education Exhibit" Project.
The 22 page guide is available here as a downloadable pdf file:
Discover California Farms... ...at California Fairs!
Agritourism Intensive classes help grow supportive networks and new enterprises
“We really enjoy having people on our farm. We have started hosting tours, for fees, including 2 bus tours with more than 40 people. We also remodeled our 100 year old farm house, added a bathroom upstairs to make it ready for a farm stay. Our kids are very involved in these activities. Agritourism is definitely part of our farm plan now.”
Rancher Kathy Landini participated in a similar agritourism planning class in Orland two years ago, and reached different conclusions with her family about agritourism on their ranch:
“Although we are thinking of offering ranch stays, after a family conference we held off. We decided that family privacy and family time would be diminished if we had guests. The kids did not feel that they would be as comfortable coming home.”
Classes offered throughout California
Our goals – new skills and new networks
Because agritourism involves providing a memorable experience to visitors instead of (or in addition to) an agricultural product, agritourism operators must develop new and different relationships with their customers. Attracting and caring for guests usually also requires farmers and ranchers to learn new skills and to form new partnerships with each other and with risk management, hospitality and marketing professionals. Our goals for the classes were to increase understanding of the agritourism industry by participants, and to provide them with skills, resources and connections to plan, start and market their own agritourism businesses or to decide that agritourism was not right for their farm, ranch or family at this time.
Our process – interaction & local connections
The Agritourism Intensive classes used hands-on, interactive activities to guide participants in assessing their own farms or ranches for agritourism potential and starting their own business, risk management, and marketing plans. 
Long term follow-up
After offering the classes for three years, we wanted to learn if we were meeting our goals. To learn whether the classes were useful to participants, we contacted the people who took the class two years ago in Fresno and Orland, and the people who completed the class in Sacramento a year ago. We asked if they had started or expanded agritourism activities since their class ended. We also asked whether they had stayed in touch with fellow class participants or presenters.
We heard back from 29 families, or 40 percent of those contacted. Of these, 22 were farmers or ranchers. (The others were tourism professionals, insurance agents, or other related people who work with agritourism operators). We learned that more than half of the responding farmers or ranchers had started or expanded agritourism activities since the class. We heard from a few who had used the class to decide not to pursue agritourism at this time. More than 80 percent of the people responding told us that they had worked with, collaborated with or consulted with at least one person who participated or presented in their class, since the class ended.
Here are some more excerpts from the responses to our inquiry:
Network is continuing
- I have pretty steady contact with some of the people from the class. People call a lot and ask questions about our trail-riding operation.
- The presenter from the Convention & Visitors Bureau has been a great resource to us, bringing some tour group leaders to us and referring other tour groups.
- I visited one of the class presenters and fellow participants to see and learn about his fishing pond operation.
- I purchased 2 mares for my summer camp from someone I met in the class
Many still moving forward…
- We are developing our lavender field and shop in preparation for opening to the public later this spring
- We got our roadside stand up. It's doing OK so far. We were investigating this possibility when we took the class
- Our blueberry U-Pick is still going. We were in the process of opening when I took the class. We have been open for a few years and would like to expand.
Some decided against agritourism…
- Concerns about liability squelched our initial plans to hold weddings on the site.
- Biosecurity has changed our plans for agritourism since we raise chickens.
Conclusion
Although our long term follow-up response was only a small sample, we were pleased to learn that the classes seemed helpful in growing agritourism enterprises and supportive networks. We learned that agritourism businesses can take time, sometimes several years, to grow, especially when farmers are busy farming. We also can say that local networks are important and durable resources for agritourism development.
View a presentation about the Agritourism Intensive classes and follow-up conversations given by UC Small Farm Program Agritourism Coordinator Penny Leff at the Women in Agriculture Educators National Conference, April 2014
