Farmer Readiness Scan & Office Hours
FINYS is proud to launch a year long farmer focused series, Cultivating Collaborations in Farm to School, which will continue our efforts to foster and strengthen partnerships between NYS farmers and schools to support a resilient food economy. This series is designed in particular for small/ mid-scale, farmers of color, and other historically resilient farmers in our state. Our first set of offerings in the series is the release of the Farmer Readiness Scan and accompanying explainer video, and office hours with FINYS staff for individualized support.
The Farmer Readiness Scan is a tool for NY farmers, growers, and producers to assess their existing operations, identify challenges and barriers to institutional procurement, and receive individualized feedback regarding available resources and next steps toward successfully selling wholesale to institutions in NY state. The Farm to Institution New York State (FINYS) Readiness Scan was developed to help further demystify the New York State Farm to School procurement process and assess a farmer's interest and level of readiness for institutional food sales. It is also designed to lend insight as to what additional resources and support farmers would need to increase their ability to engage in this level of procurement.
We built the Farmer Readiness Scan to gain more information on farmer supply & interest in sourcing to schools as well as help tailor our technical support to farmers. The goal is to build & foster better connections between farmers and FINYS Institute school teams that make their school food decisions. To offer extra support in completing the Scan, the FINYS team is offering “office hours” in case farmers have additional questions about Farm to School or need help completing the Scan.
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If you have any questions about the Farmer Readiness Scan, please contact Mikaela Perry at [email protected].