Conferences
Maryland Food Ventures Program
Shannon Dill, Shauna Henley, and Neith Little
Summary
Introduction: Small farmers and ranchers are increasing their interest and need to diversify income and sustainability with the introduction of value-added food products.
Purpose: New curriculum was designed to deliver either an in-person or a self-paced online workshop for Maryland farmers. The goals of the workshop were to increase participant knowledge and behaviors toward starting and maintaining a value-added business, as well as keep a virtual, self-paced and in-person workshop equivalent.
Methods: A face-validated retrospective tool was created, consisting of knowledge, behavior intention, demographics, program satisfaction, and self-efficacy, with a focus on marketing, financing, food safety, and product development with a 3 & 18-month follow-up evaluation. Each set of items at the end of the module consists of multiple choice, Likert, and fill in the blank questions.
Results: A total of 66 respondents completed the evaluation. Many were not familiar with the cottage food industry (45%) nor the on-farm home processing license (65%). Respondents were categorized by years of farming, novice (0-20 years) and advanced (21+ years). The majority of respondents identified as non-Hispanic (100%), female (84%), and white (70%). Most had a household income of $75,000 and above (41%), college graduate (45%), and between the ages of 34-44 (27%) and 55-64 (29%).
Significance: The results from the Maryland Food Ventures workshop indicates that this Extension program is of great interest to ranchers as well as small to larger growers. However, there may be a need to help small growers understand and grasp food science and food safety concepts as they look to formulate and manufacture their products, and expansion into proteins (e.g. meat jerkies, frozen meats/fish) is a missing gap in the program. A limitation was that participation with the assessment decreased as the modules progressed.
Presentation Materials
Details
| Conference | 2023 Extension Risk Management Education National Conference |
| Presentation Type | 30 minute concurrent session |