9. … By creating a regional support infrastructure. Collaborative and Technical Support “ The loan HVADC assisted us with was instrumental in getting both our affinage built for our cheese to age, as well as free up a second walk in cooler for our efforts to promote and sell other cheeses from Farmstead and Artisan Producers in New York. New York now has more farmstead and artisan cheesemakers than any other state in the country .”- Matthew Scott, Pampered Cow Equipment Mfg, Service, Sales Bio-Fuels and Resources Distribution and Retailing Alternative Energy Forest Products Farm and Value Added Production
10. A regional entity has many advantages over independent local entities.
Top 3 Takeaways: Make sure you mention you are a 3 person staff founded just four years ago. You are an economic development organization that is political boundary neutral. You are focused on cluster development of agricultural entities.
Top 3 Takeaways: 1) These are the four areas that usually prohibit effective entrepreneurship and/or business growth.
Top 3 Takeaways: The incubator assures success by applying rigorous due diligence before admitting clients into the program. The incubator provides industry specific expertise they wouldn ’t receive elsewhere. The incubator ’s goal is to build a community of complimentary ag businesses.
These slides speak for themselves. Also, you know the true value of this so go crazy on it.
Why this group? Because USDA, cooperative extension, and the university systems aren ’t looking at regional development or cluster development. USDA needs to be location agnostic. Extension is focused on research entirely on state projects, and if interstate projects were considered, they would be the most subject to budget cuts. This is a position with benefit to the community as a whole and therefore needs to be in an independent economic development setting: faster, more flexible, and localized.