Northeast Farm Network Project

Entrepreneurial networks can play a critical role in the ability of farmers to access resources for innovation that drive business success. These networks are comprised of individuals and organizations that support farmers or connect them to resources to improve innovation and profitability. More work needs to be done in New England to identify these networks and provide targeted support to help them grow.

Our team of researchers from UConn’s College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources and Maine Business School conducted a survey and organized three focus groups to understand the differences in farm networks used by New England agribusinesses. Our goal was to explore the entrepreneurial networks of farmers and improve farmer access to critical resources. 43 farms from Connecticut and Maine participated in the study, in addition to support staff that provided their insights during focus group meetings.

Networks Summit

We are now hosting the 2025 Northeast Agricultural Networks Summit to bring together academic faculty, Extension professionals and support organizations from across the Northeast to discuss how we can best support farmers to build and utilize entrepreneurial networks. We will share findings from our research project and invite proposals from other professionals to facilitate engaging conversations around farmer networks, network building, farmer participation in networks, as well as benefits and challenges of these networks. By building relationships and collaborative capacity amongst participants, we aim to better equip regional farm support actors to foster and grow the farmer networks that drive agricultural innovation and resilience.

Please see our Save the Date for more information.

You may register directly for this one-day mini-conference.

There is also an open solicitation for proposed presentations and workshops if there is research, programming, or a case study you would like to contribute to the agenda. Submission deadline is November 1 to farm.network@uconn.edu.

Our preliminary agenda is: