An interdisciplinary team of UNH Cooperative Extension staff has teamed with outside experts to offer a 13-week Natural Resource Business Institute (NRBI) this spring. This first-of-its-kind course will provide individuals and families who want to start or expand a natural resource-based business with the essential information and preparation they need to be successful.

“Sustainably profitable farms and forestry enterprises - “working landscapes”- are essential for preserving New Hampshire’s natural resources for future generations,” says Extension agricultural business management specialist Mike Sciabarrasi. “Extension educators believe outreach education is the best way to strengthen the economic viability of the state’s natural resource businesses.”

Comprehensive course will cover all aspects of starting a natural resource business
Sciabarrasi says NRBI participants will develop an operating plan for a farming or forestry business as they learn about biological systems, product and service marketing, enterprise profitability and legal matters particular to natural resource businesses. They’ll learn to take inventory of a site’s natural resources and explore the human dynamics of running a family business (e.g., defining roles and responsibilities, handling conflict, managing time, and hiring outside labor).

NRBI participants will also learn how government agencies and financial institutions work with farm and forestry ventures, and they’ll leave well-connected to a wide variety of advisors and technical experts. They’ll receive valuable feedback from a peer support network of other natural-resources entrepreneurs.

“From decades of advising people who make their living from the land, Cooperative Extension educators understand the importance of helping natural resources entrepreneurs evaluate their business ideas carefully and learn to identify both opportunities and potential pitfalls,” says Sciabarrasi. “Participants will end up with an operating plan and a realistic expectation of success—or potentially save themselves money, time and anguish by discovering fatal flaws in their original ideas.”

Target audiences include individuals and families starting or planning a natural-resource business, current land-based business owners considering changes or expansions to their operations, families looking for ways to pass viable operations on to the next generation, and high school and college students exploring career options.

Classes meet Tuesday evenings, March 20, 2007 through June 12, 2007 from 6:00 p.m. to 9:15 p.m.
at the N.H. Farm Service Agency in the Ralph Pill Marketplace Building on 22 Bridge Street in Concord. Cost is$175.

The course meetsall USDA Farm Service Agency borrower certification requirements. Participants can also earn 4.0 continuing education credits through the UNH Professional Development and Training program.

For more information or to register
Contact Michael Sciabarrasi at 862-3234, download a brochure, or sign up online.