Consulting
Farm Business Consult & Mentorship
Starting a farm and want to run your ideas by an experienced fellow farmer? Kat offers up her two decades of organic farming, management and business experience! Oftentimes farmers come to her to brainstorm about small scale farming, adding value added products, getting kitchen licensing, branding and more! We can tailor the conversation to your needs. This can be in-person or via video chat
-
Review of your business plan
Layout a weekly work schedule
Tunnels & Grants to cover them
Talk about financing opportunities
Salad Kits, Kitchen Licensing
Economics of Value Adding
Branding and Marketing
Help you identify a niche
Product & Recipe Development
-
90 Minute conversation (in person or via video call)
Full transparency into Kat’s operation
Optional Tour of Farmlet
Follow up emails with resources and check-ins
-
$150 for 90 minute session (minimum)
($100 per additional hour)
“Farming requires a dedication to constant personal and professional growth. If you aren’t growing you aren’t farming right.”
Connections are free
If I don’t have the answers, I will make sure to connect you with someone who can. The farming community is close-knit and I am happy to be your in, and share my connections with you. Whether you need a soil scientist, a NRCS grant, or a good deal on a used cultivator I will point you in the right direction.
Meet Kat
Hi! Thank you for finding my consulting site. I am excited to share my experience and know-how with fellow farmers who can benefit from it. Ultimately I strive to help to support a local food system that is built on sustainability, good business practices, and innovation that creates a good living for farmers. But who am I, anyway? I am Kat, born and raised in Palo Alto, California. I took my first farming job in high school at Hidden Villa, and fell in love with food, farm work, and farmers from there. I pursued the agricultural path after graduating from Mills College with a degree in American History. I have worked in the intersection of Gardening and Education at places like Oakland Based Urban Gardens, Berkeley Spiral Gardens, and the Colorado Rocky Mountain School as an apprentice. I came to the east coast, and quickly found Hickory Nut Gap Farm where I got to work with animal production, agritourism, and retail sales. When I first moved to Floyd, I had the opportunity to cut my teeth at Riverstone Organic Farm growing retail and wholesale organic produce and taking the lead on Sales, Retail, and Lamb production. I had the honor to work for Patchwork Family Farm, as their first employee and marveled at their tiny and mighty production systems. And for three seasons, I have been the Farm manager at Fields Edge Farm, developing and managing all aspects of specialty vegetable production. I am so grateful to call beautiful and musical county of Floyd my home. in 2021 I launched my own farm business here, called Kat the Farmer.
“From the minute I met Kat, I was blown away by the depth and breadth of her knowledge, her mad skills, and her accessible communications style. After 3 years, we are still using some of the amazing work she created for the Open Food Network USA. She is smart, professional, friendly, and has a generous attitude of "always teaching, always learning". She's well-connected in multiple food systems sectors, energetic, kind, and a pleasure to work with. I recommend contacting her for both complex process-oriented work and straightforward farmer advice. I look forward to the chance to work with her again!”
— Laurie Wayne, Open Food Network USA
“I learned a ton of stuff and am more excited than ever to get going. [Kat’s] knowledge and experience are incredible, but so is [her] ability to share it in a way that makes sense.
— Dave Trible, Bottom Creek Farm
