Conferences
Education Efforts With FAST Tools
Paul Ellinger
Summary
Farm Analysis Solution Tools (FAST) are a set of 37 Excel spreadsheets that are designed to assist farmers, consultants, lenders and agribusinesses with management and financing decisions. The tools include spreadsheets in financial analysis, investment analysis, loan analysis, risk management and other farm management tools. FAST is distributed via a CD product and can be downloaded from farmdoc (www.farmdoc.uiuc.edu).
The educational efforts include hands-on computer sessions for FAST instructor training, lender training, and farmer training. The lender and farmer training sessions have focused on specific topic areas within FAST tools. The training is designed to go beyond simply computer data entry and user training. The goal has been to teach risk management concepts and have participants understand how FAST tools can be used to assist specific decisions. The topics have included marketing and crop insurance strategies, financial management, machinery management, and credit risk assessment.
Partnering with different institutions has extended the reach and distribution of FAST tools. This session will highlight the different types of efforts and models used to teach hands-on computer sessions with FAST tools. Lessons learned from these sessions will also be discussed. Copies of the software and electronic copies of the training modules can be provided.
Presentation Materials
Details
| Conference | 2005 National Extension Risk Management Education Conference |
| Presentation Type | 60-Minute Concurrent |