Developing Your Farm or Ranch Business Plan: Use the AgPlan Tool

Before you begin, you need a plan. Here’s a helpful video that will walk you through some of the questions you should be asking yourself before you start a farm business. (Use subtitles for captions in Spanish or Chinese.) Starting a Farm Business

But where do you start? What needs to be in a successful business plan? And do you really need one?

Think of your business plan as a map for road trip: Yes, you need one! A good place to start is to write down your mission and vision statement. Here’s a great example of what that looks like from our friends at Flying Mule Farm in Placer County, California: Mission and Vision Statement Planning from Flying Mule Farm.

"Developing Your Business Plan" will help you understand why you need a business plan and how to use AgPlan to develop a successful farm business. Your business plan is your opportunity to tell the world about what you do. "Developing Your Business Plan" will help you figure out how to tell your story.

Watch this series of free videos, developed by the University of Minnesota*, to get your farm business up and running.

*The Center for Farm Financial Management at the University of Minnesota develops educational programs focused on farm financial planning, financial analysis, business planning and commodity marketing for farmers and ranchers, educators, lenders, small business owners and other ag professionals.

You can view their series of AgPlan videos here: https://vimeo.com/showcase/8428877