New England Small Farm Institute: “If you are a new farmer or a service provider who works with new farmers, this site is for you.” There are many resources to pursue; some are specific to New England, others are more generally useful. http://www.growingnewfarmers.org/

Beginning Farmers: An Online Resource for Farmers, Researchers, and Policy Makers. The Department of Community, Agriculture, Recreation, and Resource Studies at Michigan State University provides this forum for sharing and disseminating ideas which facilitate the process of starting new farms. http://beginningfarmers.org/

Free Business Planning from the University of Minnesota. “AgPlan,” designed specifically for farms and ag businesses, provides guidance in writing your business plan, offers the option of collaborating with one or more advisors, and allows you to save your planning work online (or print it out). Online software at http://agplan.umn.edu/

National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service: Looking for the latest in sustainable agriculture and organic farming news, events, and funding opportunities? This service features all that, plus in-depth publications on production practices, alternative crop and livestock enterprises, innovative marketing, organic certification, and highlights of local, regional, USDA, and other federal sustainable ag activities. Highly recommended! http://www.attra.ncat.org/

CSA-MI promotes Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) in Michigan. The Web site includes pages for many of the CSA growers in northwest Lower Michigan, a map of all the CSA’s we know about in Michigan, resources and links for CSA and related topics, information on The Community Farm, a newsletter for local food and CSA interests, training resources for CSA, and more. http://www.csafarms.org/