Buy Local - Buy Rogue

The Southern Oregon Farmer Incubator helps beginning and limited resource farmers start and sustain their businesses while providing needed fresh produce to area food pantries.  Participants can opt to participate in one or both of two program tracks:  hands-on farm business courses and access to new markets.  The program is a collaboration between the Oregon State University Small Farms program and Thrive in partnership with Friends of Family Farmers, Rogue Farm Corps and ACCESS.

Track 1: Farm / Business Training consists of bi-monthly hands-on agricultural, business management and marketing education over a nine-month season.  Participants will receive an on-farm consultation with a small farms instructor and be referred to other experts to address any specific issues arising during the program year.

The first track consists of ten hands-on educational sessions and five peer discussion groups from March through October.  Many sessions will be on-farm with a demonstration component.  Topics will be targeted to the needs of the particular cohort and may include:

• Irrigation
• Harvesting/post-harvest handling/packing for market
• Bookkeeping, recordkeeping & enterprise budgeting
• Greenhouse culture/seeding
• Field prep/soil prep/tools & equipment
• Managing weeds & pests
• Marketing your products including farmers markets, CSA, branding, websites, etc.
• Insurance, liability and other legal risk management topics
• Transplanting/direct seeding
• Using composts, cover crops & crop rotation

Track 2: Market Access gives participants an opportunity to sell their produce to area food pantries, made possible by a generous grant from the Cow Creek Umpqua Indian Foundation.  Participants in the second track will also sell product through Rogue Valley Local Foods, an online farmers market, and will gain experience by staffing the markets in rotation.