Ohio's Annie's Project Holds Successful Winter Workshops in 2007 & 2008

Annie’s Project began in 2003 as one Extension Educator’s idea in Illinois . Ruth Hambleton developed the workshop based on her mother, Annie Fleck’s life as a farm wife. She was a small-town girl who grew up to be a teacher, marry a farmer and lived with her in-laws. Annie was responsible for keeping the farm records, which were used to make tough management decisions in times of financial hardship. She was the person who held together the family as well as the business. Since that first Annie’s Project graduated ten women in 2003, the program has spread to eighteen states and 4,835 women have completed the six week workshop. Eight Ohio counties have conducted an Annie’s Project over the past two winters with 170 women participating.

Annie’s Project is an agricultural business course in risk management designed to address the needs of women involved with agricultural operations. It brings women together to learn the financial skills and critical information needed to manage the complicated business of running a farm today.

Specific topics include financial record keeping, money management, understanding basic financial statements, financial management tools, goal setting and mission statement writing, commodity marketing basics and marketing plan development, crop insurance, family communication, estate planning, liability issues, land rental contracts and other contracts. Women also learn more about themselves and their families/co-workers through the Real Colors® personality program.

Annie’s Project has been well received by Ohio ‘s farm women. The evaluations thus far have reported very positive impacts in the lives of the women involved in the classes. For example, a few of the preliminary results reported by three counties in 2008 showed:

•  98% had an improved understanding of how to eliminate communication barriers that existed within their farm businesses.

•  92% believed a mission statement to be important to the farm business and 46% had already written or started the process of writing a farm mission statement.

•  93% have a better idea of the farm management information available and how to access it.

Several women commented that they had changed their mind about the importance of farm family business meetings and having a written mission statement. They plan to incorporate both into their farms in the near future.

Another participant stated, “I changed my mind about my involvement in the farm business. I plan to be more involved with our farm operation, decision making and keeping informed of the resources/programs available.”

A comment made by another participant reflected the confidence many of the women feel as they increase their knowledge of farm management practices. The participant stated, “I change my mind about just dreaming about running our farm. We are going to be more aggressive in exploring solid options for making ‘our dream’ a ‘reality.’ Thank you for this class – it has made us get off the fence of indecision…and jump into the field.”

Annie’s Project was offered by OSU Extension and their collaborators in two counties during the winter of 2007 and six counties this past winter. We hope to continue to offer Annie’s Project Workshops during the winter of 2009. If you would be interested in attending an Annie’s Project contact your local OSU Extension office or Julia Woodruff at woodruff.94@osu.edu or Doris Herringshaw at herringshaw.1@sou.edu .

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