Annie’s Project 2018 provides the training, resources and networking opportunities to empower West Virginia women to help build viable, efficient and sustainable farm businesses. Annie’s Project will give West Virginia women farmers the tools to help them become better risk takers and risk managers by focusing on five areas of farm risk – production risk, marketing and pricing risk, financial risk, human and personal risk, and legal risk. Annie’s Project provides expert risk management training in a wide range of topics - business planning, record keeping, financial analysis, farm and food safety, value-chain partnerships, estate planning, income taxes and networking.
The WV Agritourism Initiative project will provide education, planning tools, supplemental resources to encourage and develop agritourism/farm-based education enterprises for 60 existing or new agritourism operators. Five risk management considerations (production, marketing, financial, legal and human) will be addressed. Project topics will include: Emerging Opportunities and Consumer Demand - Assessing Your Agritourism Potential; the Business-Side of Agritourism; Farm/Food Safety; Event and Emergency Planning; Innovative Strategies to Market your Agritourism and Farm-Based Education Enterprise - Social Media, Collaborations and Partnerships. Six months after the workshop series, 40 participants will have implemented two risk management tools/practices and 15 will have launched a new/improved agritourism/farm-based educational enterprise.