Session 3: Creating Your Farm Business Plan

Have you always dreamed of starting your own farm or food business? Maybe you're a new farmer in the first few years of operations? Do you still need to write or clean up your business plan?

Join Rural Action for this free five-part webinar series that will provide you with everything you need to create a sustainable farm business plan!

This third webinar in the series will take what participants learned from the Business Model Canvas exercise and help them create a farm business plan. Paul Patton, Social Enterprise Director at Rural Action, will walk farmers through the key elements of a successful business plan and help them begin to write their own as part of a Whole Farm Plan. Topics will cover executive summaries and value statements, product research and marketing, financial planning, and preparing for capital investment.

Paul Patton is the Social Enterprise Director at Rural Action. In this role, Patton provides technical and development assistance to Rural Action’s three social enterprises — Zero Waste Event Productions, Chesterhill Produce Auction, and True Pigments LLC — and evaluates opportunities for the development of new ventures. Before joining Rural Action, he worked with Rural Action’s Sustainable Agriculture team through the Initiative for Appalachian Food and Culture. Patton received a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Ohio State University, and a master’s in Environmental Studies from Ohio University. He is one of the founders of the Lost Crops Garden Network that studies and attempts to redomesticate the original crop complex of the Appalachian region. He also serves on the board of directors for Wisteria Event Site in Meigs County, one of the venues where Zero Waste Event Productions got its start.