CISA's Structured Decision Making for Sustainable Agriculture
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CISA will hold a ten-workshop series on Reducing Risk & Increasing Profitability with Sound Decision Making starting in January. This series will provide farmers and business owners with sound business decision-making practices to reduce their financial risk. These workshops will provide tools for and examples of building decision making into the cycles of farm life to improve long-term profitability and sustainability. Examples in the workshops will be farm related, but the skills and methodology will be relevant to all businesses. Participation in the whole series is encouraged, and to be eligible for free one-on-one consultative support, you must attend three workshops and be a cohort meeting participant.
Dinner will be served at each session. The cost to attend the series is $90 for Local Hero members, or $18 for each individual workshop. The non-member fee is $110 for the series, or $20 for each individual workshop. Register online at buylocalfood.org or contact Devon Whitney-Deal at devon@buylocalfood.org or (413) 665-7100. If cost is a barrier to your participation please feel free to contact Devon to discuss options as we want everyone to be able to get the training they need to effectively operate their business.
Structured Decision Making for Sustainable Agriculture:
Structured Decision Making (SDM) is a decision making process that integrates empirical and on-the-ground data with values-based objectives. SDM provides outcomes that are grounded in reality and represent the ethics, values, and desires of those individuals involved in decision making. SDM is the standard decision making process used by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and this workshop transfers the steps of SDM from the field of wildlife conservation to the field of sustainable agriculture. During the workshop you will learn about, practice, and apply the steps of SDM to specific on-farm decisions thanks to Assistant Professor, Curt Gervich from SUNY Plattsburgh. At the end of the session you will have the skills you need to implement and adapt this process to your specific farm. Farmer Marco Turco from Manzini Farm will share his experience using this methodology.