Workshop Session Descriptions
Ages, Stages & Business Profitability (1-1:50 pm, Tuesday 1/29). Throughout a woman’s lifetime there are events that have a direct impact on business scale and profitability. How we, as educators, technical assistance providers and coaches, address those issues can help women business owners anticipate some of these upcoming shifts and evaluate their impact on the business scale and profitability. In this interactive session, we’ll look at some of these events and explore strategies for making them part of the business planning process. Specific tools and resources will be shared and there will be time for questions and success strategies. Presenter: Mary Peabody, UVM Extension.
We Found a Program. Now What? (2-2:50 pm, Tuesday 1/29). Working with a national project team, the Women in Ag team from Iowa State University created a catalog of more than 40 educational programs from across the United States that might benefit beginning farm and ranch women. We collected and analyzed existing evaluation results from some of these programs. In this session, we’ll share common themes and topics of successful educational programs. One of the themes is the importance of networking and connecting with other farm and ranch women. We’ll overview the successes, gaps and recommendations of the evaluation results we studied. Evaluation results provided by others can help you choose new programs, improve your current programs, and plan your own evaluation processes. Presenters: Arlene de la Mora, Cori Hyde, and Madeline Schultz, Iowa State University.
Sustainable Farm Safety Solutions Through Ergonomics (3-3:50 pm, Tuesday 1/29). Occupational health hazards like repetitive motion, poor lighting, vibration and noise are just a few of the ergonomics-related issues that lead to on-farm injuries and illnesses. Our session will share real-world guidance and experience to help women farmers/ranchers learn ways in which to Work Smarter… Not Harder by developing or improving ergonomics, and to effectively reduce ergonomic-related injuries in the workplace. Presenters: Karen Funkenbusch, University of Missouri Extension and Susan Jaster, farmer and outreach staff for the Lincoln University Innovative Small Farmers’ Outreach Program.