Growing Specialty Crops
Farmers transitioning out of animal agriculture have numerous options for crops they can grow. Your choice of crop(s) should be based on your individual situation and should consider surrounding markets, climate, and labor input required.
Below you’ll find resources to learn more about several specialty crops that may be suitable for cultivation on your farm. Many of the crops listed incorporate some aspect of indoor growing or processing in order to make use of existing infrastructure you may have on your farm. Note that some crops will require infrastructure conversion or updates for successful cultivation.
General Resources
To provide a basic understanding of sustainable agriculture, the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program offers three self-paced online courses: Sustainable Agriculture Principles and Concept Overview, Strategic Farm/Ranch Planning and Marketing, and Agricultural Ecosystem Management.
Cornell Small Farms Program has created a video series detailing farmers’ experiences growing berries, raspberries, and vegetables, as well as running a two-person vegetable CSA and a 400-share vegetable CSA.
The Appropriate Technology Transfer for Rural Areas (ATTRA) program hosts a library of sustainable-agriculture resources. Topics related to growing specialty crops linked here: Specialty Crops, Pulse Crops, Fruit, Vegetables, Flowers and Herbs, Hemp, Nuts, Greenhouses, High Tunnels, Season Extension, Vineyards, and Microgreens.
Working directly with farmers pursuing farm transitions, such as converting a poultry or hog barn into a greenhouse or specialty-mushroom operation, enables Transfarmation™ to publish a growing list of crop guides and enterprise budgets on their “Farmer Resources” page. These resources include considerations for building-conversion costs and starting a new enterprise, such as specialty crops in greenhouses or indoor specialty mushrooms.
Back Pocket Grower is a free greenhouse training and resources web app created by members of FreshLearn and the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. This tool includes calculators to help guide your decisions for nutrition solutions, substrates, production budgets, climate (light, temperature, and humidity), number of production weeks, and water testing and treatment. It also offers an introductory training; online certificate courses; grower case studies; and training on cutting propagation, physical substrate properties, fertilizers and nutrients, irrigation, and water quality.
The Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems through the University of Madison-Wisconsin offers farm-viability decision support tools. The Veggie Compass is for diversified vegetable farmers, and the Fruit and Nut Compass is for new and experienced producers of perennial crops. The Veggie Compass enables farmers to make strategic decisions to adjust prices, reduce costs, shift market-channel focus, reduce or drop unprofitable products, and expand production of their most profitable ventures based on their own farm data. The Fruit and Nut Compass is a farm-business planning tool to help both new and experienced producers project the financial costs and returns of an enterprise focused on perennial crops.
This online program helps multicrop vegetable farmers determine crop-specific costs of production. It provides a framework for using cost-of-production information for business decision-making to increase farm profitability and long-term sustainability.
Bootstrap Farmer offers a free resource library covering topics such as building a greenhouse, flower farming, microgreens, hydroponics, market gardening, and edible flowers. Their resources are organized into playlists on their YouTube channel, and their podcast hosts farmers from all walks of life who share their knowledge and experience.
MVEG’s production and technical resources catalog helps growers find sources for produce supplies and learn about specific items that work for other midwestern farmers through testimonials about products and companies from peers. It includes production resources, technical assistance, grower education, and marketing and business management.
The National AgrAbility Project provides resources on a wide range of topics for agricultural workers with disabilities, including The Toolbox, an assistive technology database.
Organic Growing
The Transition to Organic Partnership Program offers direct farmer training, education, and outreach activities through a network of organizations partnering to support organic farm transitions. Unsure where to start? Use their map feature for your state to determine which partner to contact.
ATTRA’s website features a topic section devoted to organic farming, with resources on organic certification, production methods, marketing, and more.
This project provides regular online farmer training, including courses on hydroponics and other methods of crop production. Their website also features a farmer resource library, searchable by a variety of topics: fruit and vegetable production, organic production, greenhouse propagation management, production skills, disease management, and more! New Entry’s YouTube channel offers a great opportunity to explore many of the topics above and includes workshop recordings and playlists.
The Market Gardener Institute provides online courses, resources, and articles for beginning and established farmers looking to start and run a successful small-scale organic regenerative farm. Their signature class is the Market Gardener Masterclass, but they also offer Market Gardening and Organic Farming for Beginners, 8 Most Profitable Crops, Winter Farming Strategies, Mastering Greenhouse Production, Season Extension Strategies, and courses on flower farming.
Driftless Seed Supply’s grower support hub includes resources for growing fruits, vegetables, beans, flowers, and herbs and provides troubleshooting resources for seed germination, failure to thrive, flower blooming, shape and size, and pest infestation.
The Grower’s Library hosts a variety of webinars, instructional videos, articles, and planning tools that cover fruits, vegetables, herbs, flowers, and organic growing.
Growing Specialty Mushrooms
The Cornell Small Farms Program offers numerous resources for specialty mushroom cultivation, including courses and trainings, book and media recommendations, a grower listserv, information on suppliers, food safety guidance. It has also developed a downloadable harvest-to-market guide, which covers postharvest handling, sales, business planning, and decision-making for successful specialty mushroom production. The program’s YouTube channel presents webinars on shiitake viability and certification for specialty mushrooms, as well as videos on goals and business plans and growing oyster mushrooms indoors.
Haw River Mushroom’s Guide to Commercial Hardwood Mushroom Production for Small & Midsize Farms provides beginning and prospective commercial mushroom producers with the foundational principles for setting up and operating their first commercial-scale mushroom operation.
Myers Mushrooms documents its experience growing specialty mushrooms on the company’s YouTube channel. Topics include building a production and inoculation space, experimenting with substrates and yield, and exploring value-added production.
Fungi Ally provides six guidebooks for mushroom cultivation that can be downloaded for free from its website, including an in-depth guide on commercial mushroom cultivation. Fungi Ally conducted and filmed mushroom farm tours as part of a SARE project, and we’ve curated a collection of the company’s content on mushroom growing here.
Hemp
The National Hemp Association is a nonprofit organization that supports the growth and development of the national hemp industry. NHA’s website houses resources, a blog, and information about events and conferences.
eCornell offers an online course in hemp cultivation through the Cornell Certificate Program. This course covers hemp biology, propagation, indoor and outdoor cultivation, disease and insect management, and harvesting.
Agroforestry
Agroforestry is a set of indigenous land-use practices combining agriculture and forestry to create flourishing interactive agroecosystems. The benefits of these practices are greater environmental resilience, improved water quality, diversified agricultural production systems, increased wealth in rural communities, and so much more. The USDA promotes and supports agroforestry practices, such as alley cropping, forest farming, riparian forest buffers, and windbreaks.
The Savanna Institute is a nonprofit organization working with farmers and scientists across the Midwest to conduct research, education, and outreach to support the adoption and development of diverse perennial agroforestry systems. To learn how you can adopt an agroforestry system for your farm, download the Savanna Institute’s simple and direct infographics here.
ATTRA offers information and resources on the six main types of agroforestry practices in temperate climates, such as in the United States: alley cropping, silvopasture, windbreaks, multistory cropping, riparian forest buffers, and forest gardening.
The Agroforestry Design Tool guides users in designing multistory agroforests for applications such as food production and native habitat restoration. Designed by a team of systems engineers and computer programmers passionate about growing trees, the tool supports growers in species selection, spacing, and management decisions.
Supporting Pollinator Habitats
This project works with farmers to help promote the growth of high-quality pollinator habitats on well-managed farmland to support pollinator populations. The U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service funds this project through a conservation innovation grant.
The Xerces Society provides free services, compensation, and grants for growers interested in working on pollinator conservation and becoming Bee Better Certified.