Beginning Farmers

Beyond Fresh: a Food Processing Guide for Texas Farmers

A decision-making guide to planning, creating and marketing value-added food products made from sustainably-grown fruits and vegetables, written from a "farmer-first" perspective. As farmers face competition from meal-in-a-box companies, this guide aims to help farmers prosper in their own food distribution. This Food Processing Guide for Texas Farmers begins with decision-making and walks step by […]

Building Soils for Better Crops

The fourth edition of Building Soils for Better Crops—enhanced and expanded—explains how to use ecological principles to build soil health and boost fertility, yields and overall sustainability.

Farmers' Guide to Business Structures

Farmers’ Guide to Business Structures describes the fundamentals of sole proprietorships, general partnerships, limited liability companies and C, S and B corporations in straightforward language, to help you choose the best entity for your operation. Selecting the right business entity for your farm is like building the foundation of a house.

A Farmer's Guide to Crop Quality for Wholesale Outlets

A simple guide to crop quality focused on tomatoes, cucurbits and greens, with photos of good and poor crop quality as well as best practices for post-harvest handling.

Conservation Generation

The Colorado River irrigates 15 percent of the nation’s crops, making the conservation efforts of Western producers crucial to the American food system. Conservation Generation is a new short film by the National Young Farmers Coalition (NYFC) about four young farmers and ranchers in the arid West who are committed to conservation practices that conserve water and promote soil health.

Building Sustainable Farms, Ranches and Communities

This guide lists funding opportunities offered by federal programs, and is indispensable for anyone seeking government help to foster their innovative enterprise in forestry and agriculture.

Resources for Vermont's Beginning Farmers

This website provides new and beginning farmers in Vermont with information to help them succeed.

How to Begin Your Small Farm Dream

This plain language guide is for people who want to start a small farm. It covers skills you need to start a small farm; risks and rewards of farm ownership; financial resources; creating a business plan; and marketing.

Wholesale Packing Resource Guide

This plain language guide is for farmers and ranchers interested in selling to supermarkets, produce distributors, restaurants and institutions.

Applying for the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP)

This plain language guide discusses eligibility and the application process for the USDA-NRCS Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP).