The Ignatius Farm New Farmer Training Program is a collaboration between Ignatius Jesuit Centre, EFAO, Everdale and the National Farmers Union – Ontario.

Register for the whole term here or register for individual events by visiting efao.ca/events.  

**All events are recorded to allow participants to watch on their own time. Recordings will be made available on the course platform (Moodle) within 48 hours of the event.

October 30, 7:00-8:00pm

Online Meet-up: Term 4 Participants Meet-up

Join us for an informal meet-up for everyone participating in Term 4 of the Ignatius Farm New Farmer Training Program.

November 4, 9:30-11:30am

Farm Design

Speaker: TBC

November 4, 2:30-4:30pm

Production Planning

Speaker: TBC

November 6, 9:30-11:30am

Record Keeping

Small businesses have an incredible amount of data to track.  Join us for this half day workshop where we will discuss a variety of methods and tools for recordkeeping that can be used in a wide range of applications for farms of different scales.

Speakers: David Alexander, Everdale Farm with guest farmer Angie Koch from Fertile Ground Farm

November 6, 2:30-4:30pm

Financing Your Farm

Financing is a major barrier to many new farmers.  This panel will provide an overview of some of the different types of financing options and programs for new farmers and the requirements for them.  There will also be an opportunity to ask questions of the representatives from different financing institutions and organizations (such as Fair Finance Fund and Alterna).

Speaker: Johanna Mercedes from Fair Finance Fund, other speakers TBC

November 11, 9:30-11:30am

Financing and Budgets

This workshop will focus on the key financial information that every small farm-business owner should know. We will review key concepts that will help you better understand your numbers, and discuss different ways of organizing your financial data to get the information you need to make data-driven decisions to improve profits. We will leave plenty of time for Q&A.

Speaker: Julia Shanks, author of The Farmer’s Office

November 11, 2:30-4:30pm

What is a co-op and what can a farm co-op look like?

Co-ops are collectively-owned and democratically-run businesses that put people and planet over profits.  Join our two speakers as we learn about different types of co-ops and what being part of a farm coop can look like.

Speaker: Christine Clarke, Freedom Dreams Co-operative Education and Jeremy Colbeck from Beet Box Coop Farm.

November 13, 9:30-11:30am

An Introduction to Human Resources for Small-scale Farm Enterprises

What makes for a good farm employer? This webinar will provide an overview of: a) Hiring and incentives; b) HR fundamentals; c) Interpersonal dynamics, training, and retention; and d) Planning, task management, and delegation.

Speaker: Brian Tammi, Paradise Fields Farm

November 13, 2:30-4:30pm

Webinar TBC

Nov 18, 9:30-11:30am

Webinar TBC

November 18, 2:30-4:30pm

Meeting Small Business Requirements

How do you ensure you are doing everything you need to be doing as a business? Are you registered? Are you taking advantage of everything you should be? Is it better to be a sole proprietorship or to incorporate? Kristel Manes from the Guelph-Wellington Business Centre will help participants understand what they should be doing in order to meet all requirements and ensure best practices.

Speaker: Kristel Manes, Executive Director of the Guelph-Wellington Business Centre and Tony Morris

November 20, 9:30-11:30am

Marketing and Distribution

How do you create a successful marketing campaign for your business? This workshop will discuss how you conduct market research, how you price your product and effectively promote it, and how you evaluate market opportunities and possibilities.  We will also be looking at distributions and the various models for getting your product to the consumer.

Speakers: David Alexander, Everdale with Stephanie Laing, Fiddlehead Farm 

November 20, 2:30-4:30pm

Seeing the Land, Seeing Ourselves

Speaker: TBC

November 20, 4:45-5:00pm

Online Meet-up: Term 3 Participants De-brief

Full term participant debrief meet up with final words from EFAO, NFU-O, Ignatius Farm, and Everdale.

Full program details available here  >