We are looking for climate-smart farmers with big goals to transform their farms and local food systems.
What is FARMpreners?
The mission of FARMpreneurs is to enhance the success, profitability, and resilience of climate-smart farming businesses. We achieve this by providing entrepreneurial business education and fostering communities of practice.
The FARMpreneurs Strategic Sprint is a week-long, in-person executive education boot camp for climate-smart farmers. We guide participants through a demanding and innovative curriculum developed from decades of experience designing and delivering food systems entrepreneurship courses in leading MBA programs.
Introducing the FARMpreneurs Strategic Sprint
What Farmers Are Saying
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“This program came at such a perfect time for our farm. It helped me build out a strategy for our events program as we build out an education site to connect deeper with our community."
Samantha Gregory, Little Saint Farm
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"My experience during this strategic sprint has left me deeply inspired and empowered. I'm excited to bring what I learned back to my community. This year is going to be pivotal for us."
Nelson Hawkins, We Grow Farms
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“I've gained a lot of clarity during this week, especially learning alongside other likeminded farmers. It's helped me develop a solid plan for the next 1-2 years on my farm."
Amanda Janney, KM Mushrooms
After decades of teaching social entrepreneurial education & food systems change, we noticed farmers were missing out on the resources & support.
So, we created…
Upcoming Strategic Sprints
January 5-10 (Completed)
Bishop's Ranch
Northern California
January 19-25 (Completed)
Carnation Farms
Redmond, Washington
Locations & Dates for 2026 TBD
Northern California
Central California
Midwest/Upper Midwest
Washington
New York
Tennessee
Arizona
Georgia
*subject to change - partnerships in discussion
How We Select Participants
Step 1 - Online Applications
Online applications open up 60 days before our next strategic sprint. We work with farmers who grow food for their communities. Find a more detailed criteria here.
Step 2 - Finalist Interviews
Finalists will be contacted for the next steps in the interview process no more than 30 days after the application window closes.
Step 3 - Selection Process
Winners of strategic sprint placement will be notified approximately two months prior to the in-person start date of the program to allow for adequate time to book travel and plan for time off the farm.
Step 4 - Acceptance Letter
Selected participants will be asked to sign a letter of acceptance to confirm their ability to participate. There will be a mandatory Zoom meeting as part of the pre-work for the course.
Alumni Success Stories
Emma Jagoz & Moon Valley Farms
When she arrived at the program, she had just purchased land after 8 years of farming on six separate leased plots. She came with a big vision to create local jobs, build a resilient food hub, and grow healthy food for her community in the Chesapeake Bay.
Since the program, she has profitably scaled her business 7x — all with grant funding. We are also proud to say that Emma Jagoz of Moon Valley Farm holds an organic seat for the Governor's Agricultural Commission in Maryland.
Our Alumni's Impacts
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White Buffalo Land Trust
Value Added Products
Jesse Smith developed and refined a strategy for value-added products made from the fully-regenerative production at White Buffalo Land Trust. The program helped him develop a rubric for testing and prioritizing new product opportunities, while creating a clear strategy and presentation for the benefit of his organization's board and funders.
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Masumoto Family Farms
Succession Planning
The FARMpreneur program gave Nikiko Masumoto an opportunity to explore and work through key issues with respect to her assuming responsibility for this fourth generation farm. The cohort provided a safe space to explore generational transitions and put together a proposal for her family to consider.
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Meadowlark Organics
Vertical Integration
John Wepking arrived at the program in the midst of complicated, high potential generational transition with a long-time Wisconsin grain farmer and developed a solid business strategy that involved creating a vertically integrated farm to bakery business featuring on-site milling.
What Farmers Gain By Attending
Throughout the week, farmers develop a 3-5 year strategic plan for their business, grow their entrepreneurial and leadership skills, and unlock their abilities to realize their goals while becoming food systems changemakers.
Participants leave with a “strategic playbook”, in digital form, that outlines their farm’s mission, vision, and values that will guide their impact upon returning home. This playbook codifies their goals into a clear and concise strategy that can be easily communicated to key stakeholders in their business, whether it’s their business partner, private investors, land trusts, or employees.
This program is action-based and iterative. Concepts and frameworks are learned, and immediately applied to their farm’s current circumstances.
Faculty guides lead participants through a collaborative process to clarify their farm’s unique opportunities and identify the hurdles that are holding them back. On the last day of the retreat, participants will deliver their strategic playbook as a presentation to receive feedback, practice public speaking, and refine their strategy before returning home.
Most importantly, participants will gain lifelong relationships with farmers and mentors who want farmers to succeed. Every single farmer who has attended praises the space and time shared with fellow farmers who are aiming high and seeking opportunities to grow.
This is not a program teaching you how to farm better.
This is an immersive, in-person gathering where farmers are supported and guided by business experts in creating an actionable strategic playbook on how to achieve their
“Big Hairy Audacious Goals.”
Farmers are very busy people, we know.
They often don’t get the opportunity to leave the farm to focus on learning business skills and personal development.
That is why we condensed an entire semester of social entrepreneurship education, adapted for climate-smart farmers, into just 7-days.
Farmers need this information.
This week is profoundly transformative.
This is an intense week.
We are looking for farmers with the belief, hope, and inspiration to create a better, healthier food system. If transforming your farm and gathering the skills to increase your impact on your local food system excites you, we invite you to apply.
P.S. - This Program is Free for Farmers*
*Fees for all farmers are paid thanks to our generous donors, sponsors, and funders.
Farmers are only responsible for travel-associated costs if selected.
“The program helped me think bigger and take myself and my farm more seriously.
It was a great opportunity to learn and gain the resources from the business world that aren’t usually available for farmers.”
— Nikiko Masumoto, Masumoto Family Farm
“We create a safe and focused environment for climate-smart farmers to hone their business strategies and refine the mindsets, skill sets and tool kits they use to grow and operate their businesses. We bring the best practices of leading-edge entrepreneurial education to farmers—giving them dedicated time and support to think bigger to expand their profitability and increase their triple bottom-line impacts.”
— Will Rosenzweig
FARMpreneurs Faculty Leader
Faculty Director, UC Berkeley Haas Sustainable Food Initiative
Founding Dean, Food Business School, Culinary Institute of America
What Makes This Program Unique
This curriculum is the result of decades of designing and delivering food systems entrepreneurship courses in leading MBA programs.
Our goal for this week and beyond is to provide climate-smart farmers with actionable business tools, resources, and connections so they can build successful, profitable, and resilient businesses and become changemakers in the food system.
The FARMpreneurs Strategic Sprint Guides Farmers to:
Develop a strategic plan to create and capture value from your farm
Articulate a clear long-term vision with concrete steps to successfully achieve it
Practice and integrate key principles of mission-driven, values-centered entrepreneurship
Engage in peer learning and collaboration with inspiring FARMpreneurs alumni
Learn proven collaboration methods that build and foster robust partnerships that mitigate risks and support sustainability
Explore meaningful models of farmer-led food hub collaborations
Identify unmet needs in a region's farming ecosystem, and identify how to create long-term value from those business opportunities
Review and analyze product/market fit and distribution- know what to stop doing
Develop and implement an organizational plan to grow your team and its capacity
Design a charismatic, financially-viable business plan to attract and engage stakeholders: employees, partners, landowners, community leaders, lenders, investors
Present your plan to our panel of accomplished farmers, investors and food system experts who will give valuable, constructive feedback and networking opportunities
Continuing education and community beyond the sprint, with monthly peer-learning cohort conversations and mentorship and continuation course opportunities
Faculty for the Strategic Sprint
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Will Rosenzweig
Core Faculty
Will is an internationally recognized entrepreneur, educator and master gardener. He has spent more than 30 years cultivating thriving startups while teaching and mentoring mission-driven entrepreneurs around the world. He is a recipient of the Oslo Business for Peace Award, representing “the highest distinction given to a businessperson for outstanding accomplishments in the area of ethical business.”
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Jesse Smith
Core Faculty & Alumni
Jesse Smith is the Director of Land Stewardship at White Buffalo Land Trust, a non-profit dedicated to advancing regenerative agriculture. In his role, Jesse manages the Center of Regenerative Agriculture at Jalama Canyon Ranch, a 1,000-acre site that integrates farming, ranching, and conservation. He oversees vineyard operations, livestock care, and restoration activities.
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Emma Jagoz
Core Faculty & Alumni
Emma Jagoz is a first-generation farmer who founded Moon Valley Farm in 2012. It is now a 70-acre organic farm and food hub serving the Chesapeake Bay region. Jagoz also holds the first organic seat for the Governor's Agricultural Commission in Maryland and is passionate about strengthening the local Chesapeake Bay area food system.
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Anna Nakamura Knight
Guest Faculty & Farmer
Anna is a fifth-generation, Japanese American farmer stewarding 80 acres in Southern California. She farms with her family, and runs California's oldest Farm to School food hub. With 10 years of off-farm experience (5 at an investment bank!), Anna now works to help small to mid-sized farmers find ways to keep farming forever.
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Kathleen Merrigan
Guest Faculty & Executive Director, Swette Center for Sustainable Food Systems at Arizona State University
Kathleen A. Merrigan is an expert in food and agriculture, celebrated by Time Magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2010. Currently, she serves as the Kelly and Brian Swette Professor in the School of Sustainability and executive director of the Swette Center for Sustainable Food Systems at Arizona State University.
“The value of connecting with other farmers, having Will guide us, being at an abundant farm, treated with such care and fed so well is really priceless.”
— Jayne Merner, Earth Care Farm
P.S. - This Program is Free for Farmers*
*Fees for all farmers are paid thanks to our generous donors, sponsors, and funders.
Farmers are only responsible for travel-associated costs if selected.
FAQ
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The FARMpreneurs Strategic Sprint is a week-long, in-person executive education boot camp for climate-smart farmers. We guide participants through a demanding and innovative curriculum developed from decades of experience designing and delivering food systems entrepreneurship courses in leading MBA programs
The program enables and encourages farmers to develop a 3-5 year strategic plan, grow their entrepreneurial and leadership skills, and unlock their abilities to realize their goals while becoming food systems change makers.
The FARMpreneurs Strategic Sprint guides climate-smart farmers to…
Develop a strategic plan to create and capture value from your farm
Articulate a clear long-term vision with concrete steps to successfully achieve it
Practice and integrate key principles of mission-driven, values-centered entrepreneurship
Engage in peer learning and collaboration with inspiring FARMpreneurs alumni
Learn proven collaboration methods that build and foster robust partnerships that mitigate risks and support sustainability
Explore meaningful models of farmer-led food hub collaborations
Identify unmet needs in a region's farming ecosystem, and identify how to create long-term value from those business opportunities
Review and analyze product/market fit and distribution- know what to stop doing
Develop and implement an organizational plan to grow your team and its capacity
Design a charismatic, financially-viable business plan to attract and engage stakeholders: employees, partners, landowners, community leaders, lenders, investors
Present your plan to our panel of accomplished farmers, investors and food system experts who will give valuable, constructive feedback and networking opportunities
Continue beyond the strategic sprint, with monthly peer-learning cohort conversations and mentorship and continuation course opportunities
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Strategic Sprint Calendar
Northern California (Completed)
January 5-10th
Bishop’s Ranch
Washington (Completed)
January 19-25th
Carnation Farms
New York
Winter 2025 - Date TBD*
Farm Location - TBD*
2026 Sprints - TBD*
Northern California
Central California
Washington
Illinois
New York
Tennessee
North Dakota
Arizona
Georgia
*subject to change - partnerships in discussion
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Applicants must:
$250-500k gross sales looking to grow to $1m+
Looking to move from seasonal employees to full-time or year-round and provide real jobs for the community
Looking to scale up, out, or deep in regards to acres, impact, or value-add
You see your work as connected to something bigger than your farm
People who are interested in developing as a leader
Have a defined growth mindset
See money and capital as tools needed to make a more significant impact.
Want to develop a CEO mindset that does not conflict with the farmer mindset.
In an effort to maximize impact and the number of farms that we reach through this program, we ask that no more than one participant from a particular farm apply.
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The FARMpreneurs faculty team includes Will Rosenzweig as faculty lead, along with a FARMpreneurs alum who brings lived experience and context to the teachings, and a University affiliate MBA student who helps guide the facilitation of the program.
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Participants leave with a “strategic playbook”, in digital form, that outlines their farm’s mission, vision, and values that will guide their impact upon returning home. This playbook codifies their goals into a clear and concise strategy that can be easily communicated to key stakeholders in their business; whether it’s their business partner, private investors, land trusts, or employees.
Over the course of the week they will create a 3-5 year strategic plan, grow their entrepreneurial and leadership skills, and unlock their abilities to realize their goals while becoming food systems change makers.
In the final days of the course participants will make a brief presentation of this strategy to a panel of experts and entrepreneurial leaders who provide feedback and suggestions to the farmers about how they can refine their strategy and introduce potential partners and resources.
Throughout the program, we make a conscious effort to support participants in sharing their learning with their business partners and teams during and after the program. On completion of the program you will have created a strategic business plan to share with key stakeholders.
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Each strategic sprint curriculum is built to meet the needs of its participants taking into account what challenges and opportunities they each are facing, what crops the farmers grow, and what region of the country the program is being held.
Each cohort covers core social entrepreneurial topics covered, including: mission vision and values alignment, entrepreneurial mindset, communication strategy, ecosystem cultivation, team growth and management, market assessment, value creation and human centered design.
This curriculum is not a "how-to" experience - this is a "do-now" experience. Each of these topics is applied directly to the participants current circumstances and then workshopped with the entire group. There is nothing general about this work. Participants work on their goals and strategy in real time, applying the entrepreneurial skill set to the growth they want to achieve.
Peer integration is also a key to this formative experience. After completion of this course, alumni will stay connected virtually, continuing to collaborate and supporting each other.
Curriculum focus varies in each region. Examples of focus topics may include:
Institutional Relationships with: Education K-12 , University, Hospitals and Prisons
Regional Food Hub Cooperatives
Financial Literacy
Diversified farm enterprise
Value-added product development
Different forms of capital and risk
Succession planning
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This program is free for farmers to attend.
This program is generously funded by both individual and foundational support and comes at no cost to farmers. The true cost of this program is $10,000 per farmer.
We are working hard to keep it this way by leaning into philanthropy and grant sources to fund the operational costs of this program.
Farmers must cover the cost and logistics of their travel to and from the host farm.
This week-long program offered during the slow months of winter invites farmers to be rejuvenated and workshop individual growth plans, refine strategies, and identify and implement resources into an actionable plan that can transform their operations and livelihoods.
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Climate-Smart Agriculture was first defined in a 2010 report by The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. The report showed that farming was adversely impacted by climate change. At the same time, the report also showed that greenhouse gas emissions from farming made climate change worse. Climate-Smart Agriculture was seen as a way for farmers to address these twin problems while maintaining yields.
Our definition of Climate Smart Agriculture includes farming practices that focus on healthy soil, transitioning acres from conventional to organic and regenerative, reducing tillage, reducing the dependence on herbicides and fertilizers, and seeing farming as a way to mitigate climate change. We seek further businesses that are invested in community wellbeing and planetary stewardship.