Virtual Library

Welcome to NESFI's Virtual Library, an on-line collection featuring materials of interest to small-scale, sustainable, and beginning farmers and the organizations that serve them.

• Access to Land and Access to Credit  Articles by Kathy Ruhf, New England Small Farm Institute and Growing New Farmers

• Ag Careers  Newsletter providing career information in agriculture, food, natural resources, and biotechnology.

• ATTRA publications  Access to over 200 publications concerning current topics in sustainable agriculture, including crops, soils, compost, pest management, organic farming, livestock, and marketing. Direct links to publications in HTML and PDF.

• DACUM Occupational Profile for Northeast, Small Scale ‘Sustainable’ Farmer  Outline of the knowledge and skills required to successfully own and operate a farm.

• Farm and Market Report  Access to the bi-monthly Farm and Market Report, which offers news and articles concerning farming in Massachusetts. Click on the year, then the month, to reach the printable version. Keyword search here .

• Finding the Niche:  Case Studies of Beginning Small-Scale Farmers   Case studies from highly developed areas similar in many respects to the Northeast. Participants in our Exploring the Small Farm Dream course have found reading these studies to be extremely helpful. The final section details the common challenges faced by beginning farmers, and outlines strategies service providers can use to assist beginning farmers in surmounting them.

• Funding the New Harvest  Study on financing barriers for small, sustainable farmers. Includes results of a survey of organic farmers.

• Great News About Grass  Article explaining the benefits of grass-fed or pasture-raised livestock.

• Growing Farmers' Markets for Community and Economic Development  Includes selected taped segments using Real Player, as well as associated handouts and an order form for a 3-disc DVD of the complete distance learning program.

• Marketing Orientation - A Producer's View  Reviews the elements critical to successful marketing in the food and agricultural industry. Written by faculty of the Department of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University.

• New Farm Newsletter  Newsletter containing “farmer-to-farmer know-how from the Rodale Institute.” Archived published every one to two weeks.

• Northeast Farms to Food: Understanding Our Region's Food System (2004)   Facts and analyses of production, distribution and consumption of agricultural products from Maine to West Virginia. Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Working Group.

• Organic Farming and Marketing  Online publications from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) from 1992-2003.

• Organic Farming Research Foundation  Research related to organic farming practices. Download past issues (1995-2004) of the 32-page OFRF Information Bulletin Newletter, plus other surveys and studies, all in PDF.

• Risky Business  On-line tool to help beginning Massachusetts farmers address risk.

• Small Farm Quarterly Magazine  A new Northeast regional magazine for farmers and farm families who are farming "on a family-scale" and who value the quality of life that smaller farms provide. Click on the current issue to access PDF files useful to the small farmer.

• USDA Rural Development  USDA Rural Development is committed to helping improve the economy and quality of life in all of rural America. Search for online USDA publications on the Rural Development website as well as the USDA website.

• Western Profiles of Innovative Agricultural Marketing:  Examples from Direct Farm Marketing and Agri-Tourism Enterprises  Available for downloading and printing in PDF format.

UMass Extension Publications

• Berry Notes - monthly; on-line only
• Fruit Notes - monthly; on-line 6 months after print publication
• Healthy Fruit - weekly during 1st half of growing season; on-line 1 month after publication
• Hort Notes - biweekly March to Oct.; on-line archives only
• Landscape Message - weekly in growing season, bi-weekly mid-late summer, monthly in the winter; includes on-line archives
• Vegetable Notes - winter through summer; includes IPM newsletter

Please send your suggestions for additional on-line documents to library@smallfarm.org.