Continuing Education - Small Scale Food Production

There are many different types of growing strategies that food producers use in small scale food production today.  These strategies can include equal parts engineering, technology, and management systems.  This course takes a close look at these systems as applied to controlled environment agriculture (CEA) and greenhouses. You will learn about types of operations, hydroponics and other production systems, crop selection, lighting, nutrients, climate control, automation, and sustainability. The main assignment for this course is to design a growing system that uses technology, whether that be a greenhouse, controlled environment growing operation, or small urban farm. This may be completed on your own or as part of a group project. 

You will find the book “Achieving Sustainable Urban Agriculture (2020)” a useful text for this course. There are also several articles, websites, and videos that you will read and watch. We will also include many resource links to help you learn more about specific topics.

This is the third course in the Certificate in Small Scale Food Production. Although students will normally take the courses of this certificate in order, the prerequisite for this course is Badge 1 – Introduction to Small Scale Food Production.  

This course offers students an overview of the business planning process and is equally relevant for small, simple operations as well as for larger, more complex ones since the same basic thinking goes into both.  The only difference is scale.Developing a business is hard – there are so many things to consider that it can be overwhelming. Building a successful business is quite a lot like building a house.  When you build a house, you first figure out some big picture things like where to build, how big to make it based on your needs, and what it should look like.  Once you have the big picture items in place, you then make up sets of plans and sub plans for each part of the build.  No one would build a house, or even a doghouse, without a blueprint or a plan, and this is the same for a business. The trick with managing anything difficult is to break up the task into smaller more ‘manageable’ pieces and plans.  Whether you are building a simple business or a complex one, this course will look at the thinking and the plans needed to create a successful small scale food production business.  As you read the material and perform the exercises in the modules, just keep the context and size of your business in mind and have fun with it! 

The main assignment in this course is an individual or group project that involves modeling a small-scale fool production business, or social enterprise, and determining if it is a feasible idea. You will do this through a series of sub-reports for each module. Together, the sub-reports will result in a feasibility study for your small-scale food production business.  You can choose a garden or small farm that you may have designed in Badge 2 of this Certificate or perhaps a controlled environment operation that you designed in Badge 3, or even another idea, maybe for a social enterprise, that you or your group would like to explore. This course will provide several spreadsheets for you to use for your calculations. Don’t worry, you do not need to be an accountant to do this course!  There are no specific texts that are required but you may find The Urban Gardener (2016) helpful. 

The prerequisites for this course are the first course in the Certificate “Introduction to Small Scale Food Production” and at least one of “Edible Gardens from Soil to Harvest” (Badge 2) or “Controlled Environment Food Production” (Badge 3). 

The goal of this badge is to provide Certificate in Small Scale Food Production students with hands-on work experience.  The requirements for this badge can be met by either volunteering at a small-scale food production business, OR by starting your own business.  Student will work with either a workplace practicum supervisor and/or in collaboration with your St. Mary’s Practicum Instructor.  In some cases, depending on the complexity of your chosen practicum, the student may also be assigned a mentor. The Practicum Instructor makes all workplace practicum placements. Students may not contact organizations directly or make their own placement arrangements. 

The entire practicum OR self employment badge is 1 month long, but the expectation is the workplace / self employment requirement will include the equivalent of 10 x 7-hour days (70 hrs) of work with either your assigned small-scale agriculture practicum host or work on your own business. 

In addition, students will participate in a half-day St. Mary’s classroom or online session at the end of each week to discuss progress in the practicum.