Consultations
The Care Farming Network provides expert advice and guidance on how to start, build, and grow a care farm. Our consultants have more than 30 years of experience in care farming leadership. We love talking to folks, whether you are in the idea phase or are an established care farm needing support with specific questions or issues.
The consultation process
Consultations begin with an email exchange to understand your needs and determine the next steps. We offer consultations at $100/hour (with a potential sliding scale).
Each consultation includes guidance from an experienced care farmer, along with a follow-up email summarizing key insights and available resources. Our goal is to make consultations accessible to all—if cost is a concern, we can offer pro-bono calls, as we don’t want finances to be a barrier.
Consultations include a wide range of topics, such as:
- Care Farm Startup
- Fundraising & Grant Writing
- Program Development and Evaluation
- Operating a Successful Care Farm
- Identifying and Prioritizing Needs
- Staff and Volunteer Support
- Governance Issues
Curious to read about what a consultation looks like? Click here to read a blog post about how Care Farming Network offered support to a Texas Care Farm.
Before requesting a consultation, we encourage you to explore the following helpful resources:
- Explore care farms across the U.S. on our website, which features an interactive map of care farms, allowing you to filter by location, population served, or types of farming practices.
- If you’re on Facebook, we invite you to join our Care Farming Network discussion group. This is a vibrant community of aspiring and established care farmers, where you can connect, ask questions, share experiences, and gain insights from others.
- Watch our recorded online 2023 and 2024 Beginning Care Farming Series with each session covering key topics for aspiring care farmers. Each session includes a resource sheet filled with useful links, organizations, and tools. You can also browse our resource library for past webinars and additional materials.
- Join Our Monthly Member Gatherings on the first Thursday of each month from 3–4 PM ET. These free sessions are a great way to connect with fellow care farmers, ask questions, and engage with the care farming community. Register on our events page!
- Watch Our “What is Care Farming?” video for a quick and insightful overview of care farming and its many benefits.
Request a consultation
To learn more about consultations and start the process, please email andrea@carefarmingnetwork.org.
Meet our care farm consultants
Andrea Barnhart
With over 20 years experience working with non-profits and nine years of experience working at Red Wiggler Care Farm managing people with intellectual and/or developmental differences, Andrea hopes to strengthen the Care Farming movement by providing training and consultations to other care farms, sharing in their challenges and successes specifically focusing on how to integrate people of all abilities into a working care farm juggling production demands alongside of inclusion. Andrea can offer support in the areas of:
- Daily operations of a care farm: Inclusion in farm tasks
- Volunteer management
- Managing staff (of all abilities)
- Systems tracking (yields, distribution, and job skills development)
Woody Woodroof
Woody is the Executive Director and Founder of Red Wiggler Care Farm. Established in 1996, Red Wiggler is a 12-acre certified organic vegetable farm that provides meaningful employment and healthy food for adults with developmental disabilities. Woody can offer support in the areas of:
- Non-profit management
- Fundraising
- Board management
- Care farm start-up
- Identification of needs
Testimonials
Since we spoke, I was able to work with NOFA-NJ to partner with a host farm, so that I can begin to run consistent programming in one location with a consistent group of (paid) participants - your feedback directly helped me pivot in that way, and gave me the encouragement to ask for that type of support from NOFA, who immediately responded positively. They've shared an announcement through their community of thousands of readers about our partnership, and have even committed to supporting my mission to pay each worker a set hourly rate above minimum wage, plus my "healthy belly" stipend per hour to enable workers to purchase organic produce directly from the farmer we're partnering with. I'm learning that asking for big things actually works!