Farmer Support

On-Farm Consulting

The Sustainable Farming Association was founded on the principle that farmers are each others' best teachers. Staying true to this idea, SFA offers members on-farm coaching and consulting from experienced farmer-practitioners who actively manage their own farms. This hands-on experience allows consultants to provide practical, real-world guidance tailored to each farm's unique needs.

Few things compare to walking your farm with another farmer who can help you see new possibilities. By starting with your farm's unique context, SFA consultants ask thoughtful questions to help you analyze and reimagine your operation. Often, the biggest shift comes from changing how you think about managing your farm.

Consultants often see ourselves as coaches, helping you spot opportunities and challenges that might not be obvious when you're deep in the day-to-day work of farming. With an outside perspective, we can guide you toward more profitable and sustainable decisions. Just like other industries benefit from coaching and consulting, we believe farmers can too.

2024 Aug Mary & Jonathan Consulting 3 for web

Working with the SFA and their consulting program has provided an additional, unbiased, perspective into my business. We worked through my different enterprises, looking at each of them independently and analyzing their overheads, inputs, gross product, and profitability.

While I had been determined to grow my business, and working through my numbers I felt like I had a good idea of where I should be growing, working with SFA dramatically increased my confidence in the numbers, clearly identifying what I should be spending my efforts on in the immediate future.

Within a month of working with SFA, I got significantly more aggressive on my search for growth, and have doubled my acreage in key areas through leases. I am confident that working with SFA in the future will help provide clarity to my decision making and provide me with a sounding board to talk through my ideas and processes. I would highly recommend working with them.

- Eric Blaha, Verndale, Minnesota

How It Works

In 2024, SFA launched a pilot cost-share model of On-Farm Consulting for our members. Valued at $2,000, participating farmers pay for $500 (25%) in the form of a year-long SFA membership. The balance is cost-shared by generous donors who believe that real change in agriculture is driven by farmers supporting other farmers

Every farm is different, so consultants tailor their support to match each farm’s unique goals and needs over a year-long term. This includes on-farm visits, phone calls, emails, Zoom meetings, and researching tools and resources to support your success.

As a member of SFA, you will also enjoy several member benefits! These include:

Registration discounts for our signature events: Annual Conference and Midwest Grazing & Soil Health Summit
Registration discounts for intensives and other SFA events
Receive listing access to the SFA bulletin board
Receive access and the opportunity to be included in the SFA Member Directory
Special vendor discounts with companies like Powerflex Rotational Grazing Supply, North Circle Seeds, and Red Wing Shoes.

Learn more about SFA membership

How to Get Started

1. Submit a request - Complete our consulting request form.

2. Initial call - Our staff will follow up with you to review your application and goals.

3. Confirm participation - If SFA's consulting is a good fit for your operation, complete the $500 cost-share payment (must also be a member of SFA).

4. Get to work - our team will get to work for you!

Complete request form

Our Areas of Expertise

Regenerative crop and livestock systems, including cover cropping, minimum till and no-till systems, soil health, beef, dairy, small ruminants, poultry, swine, and custom grazing. Specialty crops like vegetables, fruit, orchards, and garlic. Farm business support in direct marketing, planning, labor management, and infrastructure design (e.g., fencing, farm layout). Forestry practices such as silvopasture, agroforestry, and maple syrup production. Environmental strategies like invasive plant control with livestock, resource management, and agroecology.

Examples of SFA Consulting Support

Our farm is both a crop and cattle operation, and while I had been following soil health practices for some time that I had discovered on Youtube, it didn't always work the way it was advertised. After a farm visit from SFA’s consultants, we developed a cover crop mix for some prevent plant fields that couldn’t be planted due to a wet spring. Later that summer, another visit from Kent helped guide us on grazing both cover crops and perennial pastures.

Through multiple follow-up Zoom meetings and phone calls with Jonathan and Kent, my son Cody and I have gained a much clearer understanding of our soil health tests and cattle grazing plans. Having SFA’s technical expertise just a phone call away has been invaluable.

- Dale Lincoln, Arthur, North Dakota

Questions? Email Jonathan Kilpatrick.

Questions? Email Jonathan Kilpatrick: jonathan@sfa-mn.org

Silvopasture & Agroforestry Technical Assistance

Consulting on silvopasture & agroforestry projects may be covered by a separate grant, while funds last. Your completed request form will inform funding access.

Funding for this project was provided by the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund as recommended by the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources (LCCMR).

Complete request form

Questions? Reach out to Jim Chamberlin, jim@sfa-mn.org

Emerging Farmer Support

At SFA, we believe everyone has the potential and the right to become a sustainable farmer. We are committed to ensuring that SFA programs are welcoming and accessible to all by developing and advancing strategies to engage and support new and underserved farmers. We aim to cultivate a more diverse farm community and embrace the knowledge and experience of those most impacted by systemic inequality and injustice in agriculture.

Because we believe that diverse farm communities are fundamental to sustainable agriculture, to a robust farmer-to-farmer network, and to a resilient food system, SFA created the Emerging Farmer Initiative in 2021. A team of SFAers met consistently for two years to explore how our organization can more fully embrace our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion. Early results of the committee's work included relationship-building with organizations leading in the emerging farmer space, inauguration of the emerging farmers networking lunch at our Annual Conference, and increasing access to our website content by making it available in multiple languages. Farmers who identified as emerging were invited to register free for our 2023 Annual Conference and the conference includes a session highlighting new funding opportunities for emerging farmers. Free registration for emerging farmers, along with focused sessions tailored to this audience, continues to be offered each year.

In April 2023, this committee brought a report and recommendations to SFA's Board of Directors. While the committee has been on hiatus since then, SFA is committed to continuing to explore how we can more meaningfully support Minnesota farmers who have traditionally been underserved. You can still reach out to efi@sfa-mn.org for information and suggestions for growth.

Partner resources:

- Big River Farms

- Farmland Access Hub

- Minnesota Department of Agriculture's Emerging Farmers Office

Upcoming Events

Farmer Support Resources

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