Business Bootcamp for New Farmers

Young Agrarians presents the Business Bootcamp for new farmers! This online, community-based program will give you the space and skills to write a stellar business plan for the farm of your dreams.

Course Dates: October 1–December 10, 2025 (The registration is closed)
Live sessions will be held on Wednesday evenings from 5–7 pm Pacific Time, 6–8 pm Mountain Time, 7–9 pm Central Time, 8–10 pm Eastern Time, 9–11 pm Atlantic Time.

Looking for more information? Click on the questions below!

What is the Business Bootcamp?
Is the Business Bootcamp for you?
How is the program structured?
Who are the guest speakers?
What do I need to participate fully?
What is the program cost?
FAQ

Overview

The Business Bootcamp is an eleven-week program, packed full of content and activities that will guide you through writing your farm business plan. Registration in the course includes access to a 40 page printable workbook, over 35 video tutorials, a curated list of more than 80 of our favourite business planning resources, and 20+ hours of virtual support and instruction, all broken down into easily digestible weekly modules. Each week will include pre-recorded videos, a worksheet, and a 2-hour online session.

The Business Bootcamp will cover everything from writing a mission statement to creating a financial plan to defining a marketing strategy. In this program you will have the opportunity to:

Delve into the parts of a good farm business plan
Gain insights from experts on your farm business
Get to know others in farm start-up
Hear ideas and inspiration from your peers
Set yourself up to access capital

This program is open to all new and aspiring farmers who want to gain the skills and knowledge to write (or rewrite) a business plan for a farm enterprise. The Business Bootcamp is a great place to explore the viability of your farm dream, figure out details for your first growing season, or to investigate adding another enterprise to your current farm. You don’t have to own a farm yet, but having at least one full season of farming experience is advised for participants. All production types are welcome!

If you can’t join the fall session, click the button below to be notified when dates are announced and registration is open for our winter 2026 session.

Is the Business Bootcamp for you?

The Business Bootcamp is best suited for folks who have some production experience and little or no farm business planning experience. We recommend having at least one year of hands-on farming experience (on your own farm or someone else’s) and more-or-less know what you want to grow and roughly how to grow it. Having a clear business concept will ensure that you get the most out of the program – but you do not need to know anything about business planning.

The Business Bootcamp is geared towards individuals or farm teams who:

Are planning on starting up an agricultural operation in the near future; or
Are looking to expand an existing farm or hobby enterprise; or
Want to start a new enterprise on an existing farm

Hear from some past participants of the Bootcamp:

The Art of Growing Food and Relationships – Natasha
Planted Allies – Rachelle
Bountiful Bay Farm & Nursery – Ashley
Pandemic Planting Project – David
Fair Folk Farm – Pinette

In this video, Aras and Anastasia of Caspian Acres Farm share about their experience writing a business plan in the Business Bootcamp:

Not sure if the Business Bootcamp is right for you? Let’s chat! Reach out to our team at elearning@youngagrarians.org

Looking for other resources? Check out our other E-Learning programs!

Program Format

The Business Bootcamp will run online for 11 consecutive weeks with one topic per week. Live sessions are held on Wednesday evenings (5–7 pm Pacific Time, 6–8 pm Mountain Time, 7–9 pm Central Time, 8–10 pm Eastern Time, 9–11 pm Atlantic Time). Each week includes:

Video content, 30 – 45 minutes
Live sessions with speakers, 2 hours
Worksheets, 20 minutes to 2 hours. Work at your own pace!
Additional readings and exploring new resources

If you require any accommodations to make this program accessible, connect with our team elearning@youngagrarians.org.

The program is structured to facilitate farmer-to-farmer learning, which means it’s different from a standard webinar. Each week participants are expected to watch a pre-recorded video from each speaker and complete a worksheet before attending the online, live session via Zoom.

Each speaker video covers the main concepts for their area of expertise. Some videos will focus on various elements of a business plan while others will be a story of how a farmer started their farm business.

Each topic will also have a worksheet to complete. You can expect to spend 30 minutes to 2 hours+ on each worksheet depending on the current state of your business plan and the specifics of your farm enterprise. These worksheets will help you solidify your farm vision and write your business plan.

During the live session, you have the opportunity to ask questions of the speakers and to share your completed worksheet with peers in small groups. These sessions are participatory and driven by your needs. They’re also a great way to meet other new farmers! We have live transcription available during all of our sessions.

Speakers

We have carefully selected an exceptional team of course speakers to help you get your farm business off the ground! Learn from these amazing first-generation farmers and business experts.

The Business Bootcamp is co-facilitated by Caitlin McManus, E-Learning Coordinator and Alex Pulwicki, Alberta & E-Learning Program Manager at Young Agrarians.

In 2019, Caitlin found herself on 130 acres of land outside North Bay, ON. This opportunity to steward the land and connect with the local agrarian community led Caitlin and her partner to jump into small scale farming. They have raised pigs, chickens and turkeys, as well as growing a variety of vegetables to varying degrees of success. Using this lived experience alongside her experience as an educator, scientist and storyteller, Caitlin hopes to create an online learning space that supports new farmers with the tools and inspiration to follow their agrarian dreams!

Alex loves nothing more than bringing together people to celebrate local food and farms! As the E-Learning Manager for Young Agrarians she gets to meet amazing new and aspiring farmers and help them to connect with the resources and support needed to start farming. She enjoys making online spaces a place to build connections with people near and far. Alex has worked and volunteered at a number of farms across Alberta and is passionate about local dairy and cheesemaking. She currently sits on the Edmonton Food Council and is in the early stages of starting a small herbal tea farm.

Requirements

To fully participate in the program, participants should have reliable access to a computer and a stable internet connection (to join Zoom video calls). Please contact the E-Learning team at elearning@youngagrarians.org if you need technical support.

Cost

We love supporting new and young farmers to grow! To make the Business Bootcamp more affordable we are offering a sliding scale payment, which means that you are able to select how much you pay to participate.

The suggested sliding scale cost is $250–$350, which is $25–$35 per session. If you are not able to pay on the suggested sliding scale, you are welcome to contribute an amount that works for you. No one will be turned away from our programs for lack of funds.

We base the price range on the cost of running the program (coordination, speaker fees, facilitation, program development, and online infrastructure). When you register you are able to enter any amount as a registration fee. If you’d like to learn more, please go to “What is sliding scale payment? Why do we use it?”.

Farm partners/teams that are working on the same business plan can register together. If you have any questions, would like to pay without using a credit card, and/or want to arrange a payment plan, then please contact the E-Learning team at elearning@youngagrarians.org.

FAQ

[sp_easyaccordion id=”53690″]

Questions or ideas? Email the E-Learning team at elearning@youngagrarians.org.
You can also check out more business resources for new farmers on our Farm Business Support page.

The Business Bootcamp is coordinated out of ᐊᒥᐢᑿᒌᐚᐢᑲᐦᐃᑲᐣ (Amiskwacîwâskahikan), which is in Treaty 6 and Métis Territory. This land is the meeting place of the Cree, Blackfoot, Métis, Nakota Sioux, Iroquois, Dene, Ojibway/Saulteaux/Anishinaabe, Inuit, and many others. As we live and work in the context of, and in response to, a colonial land title system, it is important to acknowledge the historical and ongoing impact of agriculture on Indigenous lands and food systems. As Métis writer Chelsea Vowel says, “I think rural/Indigenous alliances have the potential to be the most transformative relationships in this country, even as they remain the least likely to occur.” In this context, we believe that it is our collective responsibility to position reconciliation, ecology and land stewardship at the forefront if we are to learn to be in relationship with the land.

Filter by Popular Categories

Filter by Popular Categories