Center for Profitable Agriculture celebrates 25 years of service
The program, which is a joint effort between UT Extension and the Tennessee Farm Bureau Federation, helps Tennessee farmers identify, analyze, develop, and sustain value-added products and enterprises.
A center that helps Tennessee farm families increase the sustainability of their operations is celebrating a quarter century of service.
The Center for Profitable Agriculture helps Tennessee farmers identify, analyze, develop, and sustain value-added products and enterprises. For many Tennessee family farms, adding new products or services that expand their income beyond the traditional wholesale of large quantities of a commodity makes a difference to the profitability and security of their operations. It’s one thing to sell tomatoes for packaging or retail; it’s adding additional value to your revenue stream if you sell tomatoes as salsa, for example.
University of Tennessee (UT) Extension, a unit of the UT Institute of Agriculture, launched the center in 1998. Since 2002, the center has operated as a partnership between UT Extension and the Tennessee Farm Bureau Federation, combining the considerable resources of both organizations.
Specialists at the center assist Tennessee producers through one-on-one consulting and in workshops and conferences. The center also develops publications and educational materials. Among the hurdles the center helps farmers clear range from accurately assessing the costs of launching a new product or service, to navigating regulatory issues, to identifying a potential market.
To learn more about its work, click here.
