(AIC Quarterly, Volume 17, Number 3-4, 2003)

Grant awarded for risk management education

The USDA Risk Management Agency has awarded $498,000 to the AIC to 
develop a set of new risk management educational programs for 
California's cow-calf and hay ranchers, small and beginning farmers, 
and fruit and tree nut producers.

The AIC will work in partnership with the Center for Agricultural 
Business at CSU, Fresno; a Davis-based firm, Farm and Agriculture 
Collaborative Training Systems (FACTS); and USDA-RMA to develop 
curricula and supporting materials on production, price and financial 
risks. AIC Director Dan Sumner will head the project.

Project goal is to ensure that producers in the three target groups 
will be better able to use financial management, crop insurance, and 
other emerging risk management tools. The project targets 1) cow-calf 
and hay producers in the Tahoe Basin, Susanville and Alturas along 
the northeastern Sierra Nevada slope, 2) small and beginning farmers 
and ranchers, including those concentrated on the urban fringe who 
often lack the scale and expertise to access traditional risk 
management tools and agriculture-specific business education, and 3) 
fruit and tree nut producers in the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valley.

A mix of educational opportunities will be used to best reach each 
group, including multi-session courses, single-day workshops, 
web-based courses, and distance learning courses. Series of 10-week 
business planning and management skill courses for ranchers, led by 
David Visher and Marcie Rosenzweig of FACTS, were recently presented 
in Alturas, Susanville, and Reno.