September 22, 2025

Networks to Reduce Risk: Annie’s Project – Info session

The program, “Networks to Reduce Risk: Annie’s Project Builds Viable Farms in Urban and Rural NJ” will include four unique field trips and a dynamic, six-part webinar series. The overarching goal of this program is to improve risk management strategies of urban and rural farm business owners by connecting them with interactive educational opportunities, practical resources, and each other. This program is open to all.

Interested participants can attend an upcoming informational session to learn more about the program objectives and activities, the expected benefits for participants, and receive information about program registration. The informational session will be held online via Zoom on Wednesday, September 24, 2025, from 7:00 pm to 8:00 pm. To register for the informational session, please visit go.rutgers.edu/ntrrinfosession. Registration is required.

All questions can be directed to anniesproject@njaes.rutgers.edu.

This work is supported by the Northeast Extension Risk Management project award no. 2024-70027-42540, from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Thank you so much in advance!

Filed Under: Christmas Trees, Disease Forecasting, Field, Forage & Livestock, Food Safety, Fruit, Landscape, Nursery, & Turf, Vegetable Crops Tagged With: , , ,
September 16, 2025

Networks to Reduce Risk: Annie’s Project – Info session

The program, “Networks to Reduce Risk: Annie’s Project Builds Viable Farms in Urban and Rural NJ” will include four unique field trips and a dynamic, six-part webinar series. The overarching goal of this program is to improve risk management strategies of urban and rural farm business owners by connecting them with interactive educational opportunities, practical resources, and each other. This program is open to all.

Interested participants can attend an upcoming informational session to learn more about the program objectives and activities, the expected benefits for participants, and receive information about program registration. The informational session will be held online via Zoom on Wednesday, September 24, 2025, from 7:00 pm to 8:00 pm. To register for the informational session, please visit go.rutgers.edu/ntrrinfosession. Registration is required.

All questions can be directed to anniesproject@njaes.rutgers.edu.

This work is supported by the Northeast Extension Risk Management project award no. 2024-70027-42540, from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Thank you so much in advance!

Filed Under: Christmas Trees, Disease Forecasting, Field, Forage & Livestock, Food Safety, Fruit, Landscape, Nursery, & Turf, Vegetable Crops Tagged With: , , ,
September 11, 2025

Networks to Reduce Risk: Annie’s Project – Info session

The program, “Networks to Reduce Risk: Annie’s Project Builds Viable Farms in Urban and Rural NJ” will include four unique field trips and a dynamic, six-part webinar series. The overarching goal of this program is to improve risk management strategies of urban and rural farm business owners by connecting them with interactive educational opportunities, practical resources, and each other. This program is open to all.

Interested participants can attend an upcoming informational session to learn more about the program objectives and activities, the expected benefits for participants, and receive information about program registration. The informational session will be held online via Zoom on Wednesday, September 24, 2025, from 7:00 pm to 8:00 pm. To register for the informational session, please visit go.rutgers.edu/ntrrinfosession. Registration is required.

All questions can be directed to anniesproject@njaes.rutgers.edu.

This work is supported by the Northeast Extension Risk Management project award no. 2024-70027-42540, from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Thank you so much in advance!

Filed Under: Christmas Trees, Disease Forecasting, Field, Forage & Livestock, Food Safety, Fruit, Landscape, Nursery, & Turf, Vegetable Crops Tagged With: , , ,
October 14, 2021

Annie’s Project New Jersey Celebrates its 10th Anniversary with Important Workshop for NJ Farmers

 BY 

Workshop offers important farm management lessons to help women succeed

Inspired by Annie's Project logoRutgers Cooperative Extension (RCE) is celebrating10 years of Annie’s Project New Jersey with a free, online workshop headlined by Bridget Behe, professor and extension specialist in marketing at Michigan State University.

The training workshop, titled “Annie’s Project New Jersey 10 Years of Empowering New Jersey Farmers,” will be held via Zoom on November 4, from 6 to 8:30 p.m. Registration is currently open. The workshop is free, but participants must register in order to receive the link to attend.

“As in the previous Annie’s Project programs, this workshop is designed to educate and train new and aspiring farm women and provide tools for successful business management with particular focus on successful strategies to deal with the ongoing pandemic and post-pandemic,” says Robin Brumfield, extension specialist in farm management with RCE.

“In addition, this program focuses on topics within these areas of risk that present unique challenges to urban farmers,” she explains. A 2019 article on Annie’s Project New Jersey is currently the featured success story by the Northeast Extension Risk Management Education Center.

Participants will have access to invaluable tools to help sustain their farm business, including the expertise of keynote speaker Bridget Behe, who will answer the number one question farmers have been asking us, “How can farmers turn the new customers they got during the pandemic into permanent customers?”

Behe, a sought-after speaker at state, regional and national businesses and associations, provides helpful marketing and management practices designed to improve profitability and sustainability. Her website, “Marketing Munchies,” features short podcasts that use research-based information on horticulture marketing. Her podcasts can be accessed on Connect-2-Consumer or on a favorite podcast provider. Her recent peer-reviewed publications are also available on this website.

Also addressing participants will be Brian Schilling, director of Rutgers Cooperative Extension, whose presentation will focus on recent direct marketing and agritourism issues. There will be breakout sessions on the topics, Succession Planning, Marketing, and Production. The workshop will feature a panel of women farmers who will discuss what has worked and what they would change in their own operations, with a wrap-up presentation on building resilience by Brumfield.

Read more about Annie’s Project New Jersey at Rutgers. Find a detailed agenda of the workshop here. 

Filed Under: Commercial Ag Updates Tagged With: , , , , , ,
February 8, 2021

USDA to Measure Financial Well-Being of Farmers and Ranchers

Agricultural Resource Management Survey Survey       Image result for usda ag counts

Initiated back in late December, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) will be spending these next several months gathering information about farm economics and production practices from farmers and ranchers across the United States, as the agency conducts the third and final phase of the 2020 Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS).

“ARMS is the only survey that measures the current financial well-being of producers and their households as a whole,” said King Whetstone, director of the NASS Northeastern Region. “The results of this survey will help inform decisions on local and federal policies and programs that affect farms and farm families.”

In an effort to obtain the most accurate data, NASS will reach out to more than 30,000 producers nationwide, between January and April in 2021. The survey asks producers to provide in-depth information about their operating revenues, production costs, and household characteristics.

The 2020 ARMS survey includes a version of the questionnaire focused on hog and pig production costs and returns. This year the survey also includes questions to help measure any impacts of COVID-19 on farms, farm and household finances, and off-farm employment. “In February, our interviewers will begin reaching out to those farmers who have not yet responded,” said Whetstone. “We appreciate their time and are here to help them with the questionnaire so that their information will continue supporting sound agricultural decision making.”

In addition to producing accurate information, NASS has strong safeguards in place to protect the confidentiality of all farmers who respond to its surveys. The agency will only publish data in an aggregate form, ensuring the confidentiality of all responses and that no individual respondent or operation can be identified.

Growers can complete the survey online, saving you time by allowing you to skip over questions that do not apply to you, by calculating totals automatically, and by providing drop-down menus for common answers. It also saves taxpayer dollars that would otherwise be spent on return postage and data entry.

To complete your survey online, you will need your unique Survey Code from the address label on the paper questionnaire or letter you received in the mail. You can save a partially completed survey by clicking “Save and Return Later.” Do not click the “Submit” button until you are sure you are finished with your survey.

The expense data gathered in ARMS will be published in the annual Farm Production Expenditures report in July 2021. That report and others are available by clicking here. More reports based on ARMS data and more information about ARMS are available online here. For more information, please call the NASS Northeastern Regional Field Office at (800) 498-1518.

NASS is the federal statistical agency responsible for producing official data about U.S. agriculture and is committed to providing timely, accurate and useful statistics in service to U.S. agriculture.

Filed Under: Commercial Ag Updates, Field, Forage & Livestock, Fruit, Landscape, Nursery, & Turf, Vegetable Crops Tagged With: , , ,
January 7, 2021

Quality Loss Adjustment (QLA) Program Now Available for Eligible Producers Affected by 2018, 2019 Natural Disasters

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Farm Service Agency (FSA) has announced that signup for the Quality Loss Adjustment (QLA) Program began Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021. Funded by the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2020, this new program provides assistance to producers who suffered eligible crop quality losses due to natural disasters occurring in 2018 and 2019. The deadline to apply for QLA is Friday, March 5, 2021. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Commercial Ag Updates, Field, Forage & Livestock, Food Safety, Fruit, Landscape, Nursery, & Turf, Organic Production, Tree Fruit, Vegetable Crops Tagged With: , , ,