Now Reviewing Conference Workshop Proposals
To be presented at the 2024 National Farm Viability Conference
West Virginia University Extension will partner with the Agricultural Viability Alliance to host the 2024 National Farm Viability Conference in Charleston, West Virginia, April 29 through May 2.
The sixth National Farm Viability Conference is seeking proposals for workshop sessions for the 2024 conference. The mission of the conference is to strengthen farm sustainability, build stronger and more resilient local food systems, and support long term profitability of farming and agri-entrepreneurs from start-ups to generational businesses. The National Farm Viability Conference is geared toward professionals in the fields of farm and food business planning, financial planning, agricultural financing, climate adaptation and risk management, farmland protection, agricultural market development, land access, and food hub management. It offers attendees the opportunity to learn from industry leaders and other professionals in their fields, develop new skills, connect with colleagues from across the country, and visit farms and other agricultural and related businesses.
We are committed to and working toward lifting up BIPOC perspectives throughout all aspects of the conference. We are actively seeking proposals from BIPOC led and focused farm viability organizations. We strongly encourage all proposals to address the topics of diversity, equity, and inclusion within the context of our shared work to support farm viability.
Conference Topics of Interest
We are seeking presentation proposals that fit the goals of the conference and provide relevant professional development to our target audience. We expect that most workshops will cover material that falls into one or more of the topic areas listed below. A list of suggested presentation topics can be found at the end of this document.
Presentation Formation Options and Descriptions
Proposals are being sought for 90 minutes presentations in your preferred format, including:
Proposal Selection Process
The conference programming review committee will use a multi-step process to select proposals and develop the final conference agenda. Rather than selecting specific proposals exactly as they come in, we expect to play a role in developing the agenda for many of the sessions so that the content of each session meets the conference goals.
Selection criteria for ranking workshop proposals:
How to Submit a Proposal
Compensation for Presenters
This conference is intended as a peer-to-peer professional development event, with most workshops being led by conference attendees who are practitioners in this field. For the 2024 conference, we can offer a discounted registration for presenters and panelists. If your proposal is selected, you will receive instructions for applying the appropriate discount code at registration.
The sixth National Farm Viability Conference is seeking proposals for workshop sessions for the 2024 conference. The mission of the conference is to strengthen farm sustainability, build stronger and more resilient local food systems, and support long term profitability of farming and agri-entrepreneurs from start-ups to generational businesses. The National Farm Viability Conference is geared toward professionals in the fields of farm and food business planning, financial planning, agricultural financing, climate adaptation and risk management, farmland protection, agricultural market development, land access, and food hub management. It offers attendees the opportunity to learn from industry leaders and other professionals in their fields, develop new skills, connect with colleagues from across the country, and visit farms and other agricultural and related businesses.
We are committed to and working toward lifting up BIPOC perspectives throughout all aspects of the conference. We are actively seeking proposals from BIPOC led and focused farm viability organizations. We strongly encourage all proposals to address the topics of diversity, equity, and inclusion within the context of our shared work to support farm viability.
Conference Topics of Interest
We are seeking presentation proposals that fit the goals of the conference and provide relevant professional development to our target audience. We expect that most workshops will cover material that falls into one or more of the topic areas listed below. A list of suggested presentation topics can be found at the end of this document.
- Equity and Social Justice in the Food System
- Business Planning and Development
- Farm Financial Management
- Climate Adaptation and Risk Management
- Land Access, Retention, and Transfer
- Food and Farm Marketing and Distribution
- Accessing Capital
- Program Design, Development, Management and Funding
- Agricultural Policy and Advocacy
Presentation Formation Options and Descriptions
Proposals are being sought for 90 minutes presentations in your preferred format, including:
- Workshops: Some topics are best covered with a lecture and a traditional PowerPoint presentation. Others benefit from the inclusion of activities to apply and practice what is being taught, using discussion groups (general or break-out), worksheets, polls or other engagement strategies. We encourage you to incorporate creative ways to keep your audience engaged.
- Moderated Panel Discussions: Bring together a small handful of farm viability professionals to share their perspectives on a hot topic.
- Roundtable Discussions: Pose a burning question that you’d love to have a conversation about with other professionals in your field and facilitate the discussion. You don’t have to be an expert on the topic you want to talk about, you just have to keep the conversation flowing.
- Ask the Expert Sessions: Similar to a professor’s office hours, these open sessions provide a chance for those with expertise in a particular area to field questions from the less experienced among us.
Proposal Selection Process
The conference programming review committee will use a multi-step process to select proposals and develop the final conference agenda. Rather than selecting specific proposals exactly as they come in, we expect to play a role in developing the agenda for many of the sessions so that the content of each session meets the conference goals.
- Interested presenters submit initial proposals by 8 p.m. EST on January 16, 2024.
- The committee will review proposals based on the selection criteria (see below) and will work with selected presenters to hone their ideas, connect them with other potential session panelists, and massage content to best fit conference goals. Presenters will be notified of the review decision by February 14, 2024.
- Selected presenters will finalize their sessions, confirm schedules with conference coordinators, and submit necessary information for the conference program (session titles and full descriptions, bios, panelist information, etc.) by March 20, 2024.
Selection criteria for ranking workshop proposals:
- Is the proposal targeted at the appropriate audience?
- How well does the content fit with the goals of the conference?
- How well would this session contribute towards a diversity of practitioners, experiences, and perspectives? We are particularly seeking diversity in race, ethnicity, and gender identity of presenters and who they serve, as well as in the geographic location and types of farm/food businesses served.
- Presenter/facilitator level of experience (with the topic area and with presenting or organizing workshops) and ability to deliver a high-quality session.
How to Submit a Proposal
- Review this Call for Proposals to understand the types of workshops that this conference is seeking.
- Contact the Programming Committee Coordinator with any questions: [email protected]
- Submit a proposal online by 8 p.m. EST on January 16, 2024 (NOW CLOSED).
- Questions from the submission form can be found at the bottom of this page.
- There is no limit to the number of proposals you may submit.
Compensation for Presenters
This conference is intended as a peer-to-peer professional development event, with most workshops being led by conference attendees who are practitioners in this field. For the 2024 conference, we can offer a discounted registration for presenters and panelists. If your proposal is selected, you will receive instructions for applying the appropriate discount code at registration.
Solicited presentation topics and examples of previous workshop sessions
This list is intended to be a guide to topics for workshops we are seeking and to provide priority topics for 2024. We are looking for engaging ways to organize content, and discussions that bring together a variety of presenters from across the country. In choosing a topic, think about what conversations and learning you most want to facilitate among your peers, how you could engage your mentors in a session, and what you can share with professionals newer to the sector than you. These options could be presented in any of the session formats (workshop, moderated panel discussion, roundtable discussion, ask the expert). You are free to take a topic directly from this list or use it as inspiration!
Equity and Social Justice in the Food System
Business Planning and Development
Farm Financial Management
Climate Adaptation and Risk Management
Food and Farm Marketing and Distribution
Land Access, Retention and Transfer
Accessing Capital
Program Design, Development, Management and Funding
Agricultural Policy and Advocacy
More detailed information on past sessions can be found here.
Ready to submit a proposal? Click the button below to launch the proposal submission form.
This list is intended to be a guide to topics for workshops we are seeking and to provide priority topics for 2024. We are looking for engaging ways to organize content, and discussions that bring together a variety of presenters from across the country. In choosing a topic, think about what conversations and learning you most want to facilitate among your peers, how you could engage your mentors in a session, and what you can share with professionals newer to the sector than you. These options could be presented in any of the session formats (workshop, moderated panel discussion, roundtable discussion, ask the expert). You are free to take a topic directly from this list or use it as inspiration!
Equity and Social Justice in the Food System
- Addressing both farm viability and social justice simultaneously
- Understanding and operationalizing racial equity in food aggregation and distribution
- Building pathways to farm ownership for farm workers and underserved audiences
- Systemic racism and its impacts on BIPOC farmers and food business owners
- Partnering with hunger relief organizations
- How white farm viability practitioners can support BIPOC communities without causing harm
- How farmers are using fair labor practices
Business Planning and Development
- How different communities relate to money and finances
- Developing, distributing and/or using business planning tools
- Sharing tools for assessing client skills, gaps and needs
- Case studies in viability for different business models and entrepreneur goals
- Assessing the viability of various farm diversification strategies
- Case studies of cooperative food and farm enterprises and implications for equity, access and exit
- Supporting enterprises with a mix of social, cultural and entrepreneurial goals
- Supporting food businesses and value added producers
- Supporting “ag of the middle” farmers
- Supporting “advanced beginning” farmers
- Business management training for beginning farmers
- Cases in complementary non-farm revenue sources to support farmland access, retention & viability
- Farmland protection as a business tool and implications for business & succession planning
Farm Financial Management
- Developing, distributing and/or using farm financial management tools
- Sharing newly published cost of production or benchmark studies
- Comparing farm financial record keeping systems for different audiences
- Soft skills and hard topics around the farmer’s kitchen table for the business advisor
- Methods for working in teams with the business owner, bookkeeper, business consultant and other advisors
- Problems in producing financial statements: assessing quality and common issues
- Metrics for assessing farm/food business profitability
- Lessons in coaching clients in developing quality financial processes and making managerial decisions from their financial statements
- Annual farm financial management calendar and other tools to support clients’ financial management processes
- Advanced financial management for the farm business advisor
- Learning to follow interactions between financial statements through case studies
- Capital management: effective working and growth capital management for value-added enterprises
- Methods and needs in managing working capital on the farm or in the food business
Climate Adaptation and Risk Management
- Models for working in teams of business advisors and climate professionals
- Avoiding, planning for, and recovering from business disruptions
- Crisis and risk management (production, financial, markets, human resource, legal)
- Climate adaptation and managing for specific on-farm stressors (heat, drought, flood, fire)
- New data and tools for assessing specific areas of climate risk (flood, fire)
- Mitigating pest, disease, temperature and moisture conditions in production: incorporating new risks into business and financial planning
- Regulatory and market approaches to increasing farmer usage of climate mitigation practices
- Effective approaches to insurance for climate risk
- Assessment of crop insurance marketplace gaps for non-commodity, diversified and small farms
Food and Farm Marketing and Distribution
- Culturally sensitive marketing
- Marketing research, planning, and implementation
- Analysis of producer costs by market channel and impact on profit margins
- Market development strategies for supporting “ag of the middle”
- Regional food system value chain development through examples
- Lessons, opportunities and failures in efficient supply chains
- Opportunities for premium pricing for climate-friendly production practices
- POS, online marketing and sales platforms options for farm and food enterprises
- Cooperative models for aggregation/marketing/distribution
- How large companies connect with and cultivate farm suppliers
Land Access, Retention and Transfer
- Land access issues for historically disadvantaged farmers; reparations, heirs’ property
- Equity and social justice in land access and transfer transactions
- Collaborative and cooperative land access case studies
- Evaluating the land and resource base fit of a property for viable enterprises matches
- Evaluating rent vs. buy financial and holistic goal scenarios with your client
- Access to land and non-family farm transfers
- Learning from mistakes in farm and food business leasing
- Sale of a business and business valuation
- Preparing for a successful business exit: a useful financial management lens for clients
- Legal issues in farm transfer
- Tax planning for farm transfer
- Coaching families and retiring farmers through succession
- Communicating across generations
Accessing Capital
- Access to capital issues and opportunities specific to BIPOC producers
- Understand multiple lender’s evaluation of your client’s loan request through case examples
- Successes and failures in access to USDA and state programs for diverse clients (racial diversity or stage, scale or enterprise type)
- Tools and methods in borrower training for loan applicants
- The capital continuum – what types of capital work for farm and food businesses
- Understanding common capital sources for farm and food businesses: best-fit capital types by business characteristics, capital purpose, and lender credit standards
- Working with clients to define capital needs, identify “right fit” capital, and utilize capital responsibly
- Case studies in leveraging capital stacks, loans and grants together for individual farm and/or broader food system goals
- Conservation finance opportunities for individual farms or the sector
Program Design, Development, Management and Funding
- Anti-racism and DEI best practices within organizations
- Building and maintaining diversity, equity and inclusion in farm viability programs
- An ethical framework for farm viability work
- Improving our farmer services in areas such as: peer/group education, experiential learning, working with diverse populations, teaching behavior change effectively, meeting the needs of communities of color, incorporating technology into farmer education programs
- Programing partnerships between BIPOC-led and white-led organizations
- Developing staff capacity for quality business advising and business advisor training approaches
- Decision making in grant making to food and farm businesses
- Meaningful & manageable metrics for program management and reporting
- Fundraising and resource development
- Outsourced and collaborative back office options, solutions and cases
- Successful CRM and software choices for client and donor management
- Evaluating farm viability programs
- Best-in-class farm viability program examples
- Marketing our programs to clients
- Registering an agricultural apprenticeship program
Agricultural Policy and Advocacy
- Examples of local, state and federal funding sources for farm and food viability programs
- Legal or policy issues in business technical assistance programing
- Emerging case law in race-based program eligibility criteria with relevance to farm viability programs
- How to be an effective advocate for change
- Actionable skills to drive policy change at the local, state and/or federal level
More detailed information on past sessions can be found here.
Ready to submit a proposal? Click the button below to launch the proposal submission form.
Submission Form Questions
- Session organizer information
- Brief bio of presenter
- Describe your experience teaching, presenting, or facilitating at conferences. Include examples of a few past presentations, especially ones given at prior NFVC.
- The conference programming committee will be making final decisions regarding which proposals are selected, and where appropriate, presenters may be asked to collaborate with others or shift the content of their proposal.
- Session title
- What is the proposed format for this session?
- Sessions should be 90 minutes in length and include sufficient time for Q&A.
- Describe the session you are proposing.
- For 'Ask the Expert' sessions, please describe your area(s) of expertise.
- Who is the intended audience for your session?
- How will this session contribute to a diversity of practitioners, experiences, and perspectives at this conference? We are particularly seeking diversity in race, ethnicity, and gender identity of presenters and who they serve, as well as in the geographic location and types of farm and food businesses served.
- Describe ways in which the topics of diversity, equity and inclusion will be integrated into your workshop session.
- Describe ways in which attendees will be able to participate. This may include interactive learning (e.g. opportunities to apply new knowledge or try new tools or techniques), break out rooms, Q&A session, attendee surveys, etc.
- Select the topic areas that apply.
- We expect to offer some topics at both beginner and advanced levels. If your session is targeted at attendees with a specific level of experience, please indicate which one.
- If the session will have presenters or panelists other than the lead organizer, please list their names and organizations if known.
- Please leave any additional comments you would like the reviewers or conference organizers to consider regarding your proposal.
