The average age of an American farmer is 57, and has risen for the past several years. An innovative program led by Professor Randy Westgren and Peter Hofherr, assistant director of the McQuinn Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership, works to change that trend by leading new farmers and ranchers to entrepreneurial success.
Entrepreneurship Project ⋅ Page 1
Seeds of Entrepreneurship
Innovative farming program fuels entrepreneurial spark
The program, led by Randy Westgren, professor of agricultural and applied economics and the McQuinn Chair for Entrepreneurial Leadership in the Division of Applied Social Sciences, and Peter Hofherr, CEO of St. James Winery, takes beginning farmers and ranchers through a four-module course that helps them transform their ideas into profitable ventures in production agriculture.
Training program jumpstarts entrepreneurship in Missouri
They came all over Missouri–from Humansville, Fayette and Villa Ridge. Some, like Ana Boatman and her daughter Natalie from Independence, are growing vegetables and raising chickens on just 1.5 acres of land, while others, such as Cathy Johnmeyer of Fayette, are raising cattle on 225 acres. Whether their operations are small, medium or somewhere in between, all of the participants came to CAFNR’s Entrepreneurship Project to learn how to transform their ideas into entrepreneurial successes.