Other Ag News: From Business to Beef, Learn New Skills with Our Online Courses

Interested in improving your technical and business knowledge? Enroll now for Cornell Small Farms Program online courses to gain valuable skills on countless topics, including finances, cattle, pigs, mushrooms, land health, and stress management. Live webinars for our first block of courses will begin next week.

Our online courses are designed to be flexible and user-friendly. All course materials are stored on our single, easy-to-use web platform, which you can access for life after enrolling in a course. Tune in to weekly webinars to hear from experts and ask questions in real time, and complete all other course reading and assignments when it works for you. 

One new addition to our suite of courses this year is the new self-paced course on Foundations of Beef Production. This new mini-course covers the most basic beef knowledge you need, from breeds to terminology to production systems. It is led by expert educators Betsy Hicks and Abbey Birchenough, and includes two free additional office hour sessions with them. If you are starting from zero, we recommend taking this mini-course and then enrolling in the live-instructed Beef Cattle Production and Management, which begins on Wednesday, September 24.

Registration is open now for all courses. Make sure to enroll for our first block of classes, which will run for six weeks beginning the week of September 22. 

BF 101: Starting at Square One

Mondays from 6:30 p.m. – 8 p.m. ET

So you’re thinking about starting a farm, but feeling overwhelmed by all the decisions? Have your online searches turned up piles of information, but you still feel a bit lost? This course is designed to assist new and aspiring farmers in taking the first steps in thinking through farm start-up (whether you already have land access or not).

BF 112: Reading the Land

Mondays from 7 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. ET

There is only one guarantee in agriculture or other land-based businesses: “When we improve land health we realize improvements in production, profitability, and social well-being.” This course will teach farmers how to measure improved land health through reading the land as we walk across it, as well as conducting various biological monitoring practices, from simple to more complex.

BF 101: Cómo Iniciar su Negocio Agrícola

Martes, de 6:30 p.m. a 8 p.m., hora del este

¿Está pensando en comenzar un negocio agrícola propio, pero se siente confundido por todas las decisiones que esto involucra? ¿Sus búsquedas en línea han arrojado mucha información, pero todavía se siente un poco perdido? Este curso está diseñado para ayudar a todas las personas que desean iniciar o son agricultores nuevos a dar los primeros pasos para iniciar su propio negocio agrícola (finca, rancho, granja), ya sea que tenga acceso a la tierra o no. Este curso es 100% en Español.

BF 149: Identifying and Partnering with Mushrooms in Farms, Gardens and Forests

Tuesdays from 6:30 p.m. – 8 p.m. ET

Mushrooms are a fascinating set of organisms that are quickly gaining popularity for a wide range of applications from food to medicine to cleaning up toxic pollutants. This course offers an overview of foundational knowledge needed to understand how mushrooms might play a role in your farm and/or greater community. Learn the basic biology and life cycle, proper harvest and identification, and examples of how humans are using mushrooms.

BF 204: QuickBooks for Farmers

Tuesdays from 7 p.m. – 8 p.m. ET

This course is an introduction to QuickBooks, designed to provide an overview of the QuickBooks Pro software application. It will cover the basic features, such as sales tax, inventory, invoicing, adjustments, and year-end procedures. Students will gain hands-on experience in the concepts presented, as well as guidance on applying the concepts to their own farm bookkeeping.

BF 233: Beef Cattle Management

Wednesdays from 6:30 p.m. – 8 p.m. ET

Having a successful cattle business is about much more than just buying a few head and putting them in a field. If you want to turn a profit, you need to think carefully about your goals, marketing strategies, appropriate breeds, and many more details. Over this six-week course, you’ll get a much clearer idea of what is involved, whether it’s the right fit for you, and if it is, what steps you need to take to get started. Now also available as a bundle with our new self-paced Foundations of Beef Production course.

BF 210: Stress Reduction for Farmers

Wednesdays from 7 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. ET

Interested in creating a farm that runs smoothly, having time for off-farm interests, and reducing your overall stress? In this course, farmer Allyson Angelini shares Holistic Management tools that will help you approach farming with intention, an eye for efficiency, and in ways that are more self-supportive. Learn to conduct an annual review, establish priorities, create an achievable plan, and connect with peers for support and encouragement.

BF 138: Getting Started with Pastured Pigs

Thursdays from 6:30 p.m. – 8 p.m. ET

Pigs can function as a profitable stand-alone enterprise or can be integrated into your existing farm structure to provide a variety of products and utilize marginal lands that would otherwise go unused. This course will guide beginning farmers through the production and marketing of pigs raised in pasture settings.

In our ongoing commitment to equitable access to education, we have maintained tiered pricing for our courses based on household size and income. We also offer scholarships for eligible farmers in New York who face an entry barrier to farming, and for military veterans in New York State.

In recent years we added “Growing Uncommon Fruit,” which will help you determine whether incorporating uncommon fruit into your operation is the right decision for you, “Goat Production,” which will guide beginning farmers through the production and marketing of goats for dairy, meat and fiber, and “Identifying and Partnering with Mushrooms in Farms, Gardens and Forests” to teach you basic ID, species, life cycle, and potential applications of mushrooms to solve community-level challenges. Other newer additions include “Stress Reduction for Farmers,” which offers strategies for streamlining your farm; “Access to Capital” for anyone seeking funding for a farm enterprise; “Cut Flower Production” on the business of flower farming; a course on “Beef Cattle Management;” a primer on “Social Media & Online Marketing” for your farm business; and a 4-week intensive in how “Reading the Land” can help you monitor its health.

You can browse all of our course offerings on our website. You can learn more about our courses, including answers to common questions, on our course FAQ.

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