Farm Credit offers financial training course
Farm Credit has received a grant to cover tuition and make a new e-learning financial and business management course available to North Carolina farm families.
The online training will be offered statewide through North Carolina’s three Farm Credit associations. The Farm Credit University curriculum includes financial planning, budgeting and other money matters essential to a farm’s success.
Farm Credit’s e-learning program targets young, beginning, small, and minority farmers throughout the state. Participants will be assigned a Farm Credit loan officer to serve as a mentor throughout the course. Highlights of the program include modules that cover business and personal financial planning, understanding income statements, cash flow, the smart use of credit on the farm. Each participant will have completed a business plan for their operation at the conclusion of the class. Priority will be given to former tobacco farmers and others impacted by the tobacco buyout. The grant provides for training 60 producers in a set of two classes over the next two years.
AgCarolina Financial, Cape Fear, and Carolina Farm Credit will be accepting applications for the program which will begin in October. Applications, a course outline, and program information is available at the following Web sites: www.CarolinaFarmCredit.com, www.AgCarolinaFinancial.com and www.CapeFearFarmCredit.com. Applications will be accepted through Sept. 1. Individuals selected for the program will be notified after Sept. 15. The course will conclude with a group meeting in Raleigh in March 2010.
The program is funded by a $94,500 grant from the N.C. Tobacco Trust Fund Commission. The N.C. General Assembly established the commission in 2000 to help tobacco farmers, farm workers and related businesses impacted by the transition out of tobacco farming.
The commission’s funding comes from money paid by cigarette manufacturers as a result of the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement.
The Farm Credit financial training program is one of 20 projects across the state that received a combined total of $3 million in 2009 grants from the commission.
