Small Farm Strategies

Meet our Columnist: Sarah Aubrey

Sarah Aubrey is the owner of Aubrey's Natural Meats, Indiana's premier source for gourmet natural beef and pork. She and her husband live in rural Indiana, where they raise beef cattle for her company.

To help farmers position themselves well for the opportunities afforded by today's market, Aubrey shares her years of research and firsthand experience in her first book Starting & Running Your Own Small Farm Business. It offers everything readers need to know about launching a small agricultural enterprise, from initial start-up to consumer marketing.

Begin by fine-tuning that bright idea into a viable business plan, and then learn how to go out and sell it. Secure financing, work out the legalities, follow the proper USDA guidelines, and a farming business is born. Aubrey explains every step of the process and even includes samples of the required forms.

Every small farmer must also become a skilled salesperson and marketing professional. Aubrey runs through all the selling options — from rural farmstands to Web sites to food service wholesalers — and explains the pros and cons of each. She also explains how to create and stick with an advertising budget, how to develop pricing strategies, and the importance of personal asset protection.

Aubrey brings her business advice to life with profiles of farmers successfully crafting and selling everything from small batches of wine to exotic animals such as elk and alpacas. Their stories are minicourses in successful farming, sure to inspire every reader.

Starting & Running Your Own Small Farm Business will bereleased by Storey Publishing in January 2008. It is the first in a series of books Aubrey has planned for small farm businesses. For more information visit http://storey.workman.com/products/9781580176972/.

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