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Reducing Risk by Building Labor Management Know-How

Beth Holtzman and John Hendrickson

Summary

Join this fast-paced session to learn about the Farm Labor Dashboard and its growing suite of tools and resources that you can incorporate into your programming to help producers manage production, financial, human and legal risks associated with being a farm employer.

The Farm Labor Dashboard is a multi-state project working to help farmers improve labor management on small and mid-sized produce and non-dairy livestock farms. Project partners currently include University of Vermont Extension, University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension, University of Wisconsin Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems, Renewing the Countryside and University of Nebraska.

The session will take you on a quick tour of the dashboard, its resource library and its interactive tools, all which were updated and expanded in early 2024 based on user feedback.

The interactive tools include our "Are You Ready to Hire? Self Assessment," a "Job Description Generator," an "Employee Cost Estimator," (to project the total cost of employees), the Mechanization/Labor Return on Investment estimator, and the "Employee Policy Manual Generator." Resources include "Tailgate Trainings" and self-study guides that producers can access 24/7.

You'll learn how farmers can use the dashboard tools to identify priority risk management concerns for their particular operation, and how it can point them to specific resources -- many of which are at the Ag Risk and Farm Management Library -- that can address their risk management needs.

We'll end the session by sharing some lessons learned, time for questions and an open discussion about ways participants can envision using dashboard in their programs.

Details

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