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Agricultural Alternatives

Lynn Kime

Summary

Working with small-scale and part-time farming audiences is very rewarding, but has its own set of challenges. County Extension educators regularly receive inquires about how to produce specific crops or livestock. Since its inception in 1992, the Small-scale and Part-time Farming Project has provided educational materials to assist producers through the complexities of enterprise selection. The Agricultural Alternatives publication series was developed in response to a need for enterprise selection information by an underserved audience often unable to access Extension information through traditional means because of time limitations. This comprehensive series, now containing 64 publications (23 covering livestock enterprises), has helped farmers analyze production alternatives by providing a balanced assessment of crop and livestock enterprises that might be suitable for small-scale and part-time farming operations. All publications in the series are available through electronic media and in hard copy format. For 2014 unique page views were over 166,000 and over 12,000 printed copies were distributed. Most publications introduce a specific enterprise and cover important issues including marketing, production, regulations, risk management, and enterprise budgeting. To support the enterprise oriented materials, a set of publications were written covering agricultural business management topics including planning, financing, fruit and vegetable marketing, cooperatives, diversification, insurance, farm liability, budgeting, and managing a roadside stand. Two publications on irrigation and one on organic vegetable production were also developed as supporting materials.

Details

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