NCGT Support is Growing NC Small Business Centers’ “Agripreneurship” Programs at Community Colleges

September 2017 — NC Growing Together support is increasing the capacity of North Carolina’s Small Business Centers (SBCs) to advise clients on food- and farming-related businesses.   NCGT scholarships brought nine Small Business Center directors and staff from across the state to the REAL Agriculture Entrepreneurship Training in Blowing Rock in June.  North Carolina’s Small Business Center Network works through the state’s community college system to offer a wide range of programs and services for existing and prospective business owners.  (Read about previous work NCGT has done with the SBC network here .)

The REAL Agriculture Entrepreneurship curriculum is supported by the North Carolina Tobacco Trust Fund and the North Carolina General Assembly.  The two-day trainings are designed to support agriculture-based entrepreneurship programs.

“We see Small Business Centers, especially in rural areas, as an untapped resource for farmers and those who want to start food businesses,” says Laura Lauffer, Program Coordinator, Local Farms and Food for NC Growing Together and The Cooperative Extension Program at North Carolina Agriculture and Technical State University.  “The Small Business Centers are specifically skilled in entrepreneurship and business planning, and we want to connect those resources with farmers and food businesses owners,” she says.

Cori Lindsay, the Director of the Small Business Center at Piedmont Community College in Caswell County, attended the training and is now planning on offering two upcoming seminars: Farm Assessment and Operations, and Marketing Options for Expanding Farm and Food Operations. “The REAL training will help me better deliver small business center services to my clients including rural farmers. Rural farmers are running a business, and I want to make sure that farmers are seeing themselves as businesses. The REAL program created that connection between business education and farming by supplying agriculture-specific cases and activities, and now I can integrate NCGT resources into that work.”

Earlier this year, NCGT released a Planning Guide for Small Business Center Agri-preneurship Programs and hosted a  Webinar on Hosting Food & Farm Training Programs at Community Colleges.

For more information, please contact Laura Lauffer, Program Coordinator, Local Farms and Food for NC Growing Together and The Cooperative Extension Program at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University: 336-285-4690 or ldlauffe@ncat.edu.

This article originally appeared in the September 2017 NC Growing Together Newsletter.