A Note from the Executive Director
In 2024, New England’s farm and food entrepreneurs continued to push through acute challenges, and Carrot’s programs and people continued working to secure the resiliency of those who feed us. We listened to farmers’ needs and put advisors at a record 130 farmers’ kitchen tables, collaborating to secure their farms’ economic vitality.
We built on-farm resilience and offset farmers’ risk in the face of continued disruption. We fortified farms’ business strategies with contingency plans for drought, floods, and changing economic conditions – ensuring profitability is possible even through cycles of challenging years.
Most importantly, we stood steadfast in our commitment to advance a future where all of our region’s agricultural entrepreneurs have equal opportunity to build a prosperous living on the land. Our partnership-centered approach to serving diverse communities of entrepreneurs demonstrated how advancing equity in agriculture is now firmly built into our way of working. We are proud of how far we have come in this work, and we are energized to carry it forward.
Our Agricultural Viability Alliance amplified the impact of our local programs by investing in the vibrancy of our peer organizations across the country and the farmers they serve – from our Northeastern soil to the steps of Capitol Hill. In community with our network participants, we built capacity for systemic change, advocated to retain farm viability funding, and began professional development programming that will equip business advisors to respond to farmers’ most urgent needs.
In 2024, I relied on an amazing team of staff and working partnerships across our Carrot and AVA ecosystems, and I want to thank all of you for being foundational in manifesting an impactful year.
Working through a tumultuous early and mid-2025 alongside all of you, I see with fresh perspective how essential Carrot’s work is. Knowing that turbulent times will continue, I know our services, and the lessons learned we are sharing out through the Agricultural Viability Alliance, are more vital than ever.
I hope that as you read this report on The Carrot Project’s work in 2024, you will join me in celebrating Carrot’s impact, and the fortitude that our region’s farmers continue to manifest with our programmatic support.
With gratitude,
Benneth
Together with the Carrot & AVA Teams
Our Vision
We envision a resilient farm and food system, where successful farms and agricultural businesses are increasing in number and diversity, and are contributing to New England’s economic, environmental, and social well-being.
We support agricultural businesses, securing their futures by breaking down financial barriers and building their paths to sustainability. We do this as business advisors and through education, advocacy, and research.
We address the most important gaps at the intersections of financial security, economic justice, financial barriers to farmland access, and farmers’ abilities to weather major disruptions.
Programs Overview
The Carrot Project works toward a just and resilient farm and food system by tackling the many challenges facing food and farm entrepreneurs in New England.
The entrepreneurs we serve face barriers to becoming financially viable, so we support them to develop financial management skills, access capital and land, and build resilient businesses.
We do this by providing information, training, skill-building, and capital, within a carefully crafted ecosystem of support.
We combine our on-the-ground programs with our research, collaboration, and advocacy to create transformational change on farms, across our region, and at a national scale.
Over the last twenty years, we’ve continuously evolved. We intentionally pivot our programs to respond to our clients’ changing needs.
Our deep network of collaborative partnerships is one of our core strengths, and we design our programs to address sector gaps and complement programming offered by our partners.
The Carrot Project’s work is grounded in a commitment to racial equity and an inclusive sector.
Uplifting Entrepreneurs
The Carrot Project bolsters the viability of New England agriculture by providing farmers with strong financial standing to build lasting businesses.
We deliver services focused on the business of farming and food in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island. Our work centers on farmers and food entrepreneurs pushing through critical challenges to build lasting success.
We work side-by-side with clients to position them for profitability, achieve their business goals, and thrive long-term. Individualized, in-depth business advising is customized to each farm’s business needs and provided by advisors with expertise in agriculture and food enterprises.
In 2024, we put our partnership-driven approach to work building farmers’ resilience to the swings of severe weather and poor growing conditions that jeopardize their businesses. We served the following audiences:
- Start-up, early-stage, scaling, and established farm and food businesses.
- Farmers and fishers who use sustainable methods and sell some or all of their products locally or regionally.
- Food businesses who source and sell some or all of their goods locally or regionally.
2024 Program Focus: Managing Financial Risk & Climate Crisis
In 2024, our farm viability programming focused on equipping farmers with the skills and confidence to manage clearly in difficult times. Our “Managing Your Farm Finances in the Time of Climate Crisis” course trained farmers to use their financial statements and operational analysis to craft risk management strategies for adapting to climate change and other farm stressors.
We worked with farmers to gain perspective, strategize and pull the right levers to reduce risk in their operations, and plan a three-year income cycle. By adding poor growing seasons into the equation as a predictable possibility, clients learned to create actionable projections for a likely three-year scenario and identify leverage points for increasing income.
Training participants had the opportunity to work with a Carrot advisor for follow-up support to refine their financial records, clarify their leverage points, and to put their plans into action.
Across all of our program areas, we will continue to equip clients with proactive planning approaches that enable them to secure their livelihoods, reduce stress, and maintain satisfaction with their businesses, so they can continue farming for the long haul.
2024 Farm Viability Impacts at a Glance
In 2024, we enhanced farm viability for 527 farm and food entrepreneurs through one-on-one and educational services that empowered them to make strategic decisions for thriving businesses.
Carrot’s personalized services have a long track record of increasing farm profitability. Farms receiving individualized, in-depth business advising from The Carrot Project in 2024 increased their average annual net farm income by $19,871, and gross farm income by $38,209.
This can mean the difference between sinking and success for a small- to- medium- scale farm business. Increased income also strengthens farmers' abilities to adapt to disruption, invest in conservation practices, and thrive long-term. At a regional scale, this means more resilient food systems, more jobs in rural communities, more land staying in agriculture, more robust local economies, and more local food on local plates.
In 2024, 40% of Carrot’s clients receiving in-depth, individualized services came from very-low income households. Twenty-nine percent came from low-income houses, and 7% from moderate-income houses. These entrepreneurs are building more than businesses – they are building their livings on the land and vibrant futures for their families.
There is no “case closed” moment for farm viability work. Farm businesses, and the environment in which they operate, shift and evolve over time. Carrot adapts our services and works closely with partners to build a network of support that can bolster our clients through the obstacles, growth, and transformations they will navigate across their business lifecycles.
Uplifting the Sector
The Carrot Project's Agricultural Viability Alliance program connects farm, food, and forestry viability advisors in New England and the Hudson Valley.
These advisors work with farmers to build resilient businesses, access markets and farmland, execute business transitions, and achieve other goals.
Regionally, we offer a community for advisors to access professional development and mentorship, so they can do their best work.
Nationally, the Alliance brings advisors together to advance policy that ensures consistent funding for business assistance — so the groundbreaking work our network members have spearheaded for decades will be built into the sector long-term.
Together, Carrot and the Alliance are working to ensure all farm and food entrepreneurs have consistent access to the high-quality business assistance they need to thrive.
In 2024, the Agricultural Viability Alliance catalyzed systemic change by advocating to protect farm viability funding and programming, launching a multi-year Northeast farm viability workforce development program, stewarding the National Farm Viability Conference, implementing our new training fellowship program, and embedding resilience and a commitment to equity and inclusion into the sector.
Learn more about the Agricultural Viability Alliance here.
2024 National Farm Viability Conference
The Alliance serves as the organizational backbone for the National Farm Viability Conference (NFVC), a biennial event gathering business advisors for peer-to-peer learning focused on strengthening farm sustainability, building resilient local food systems, and supporting the long-term profitability of agricultural entrepreneurs.
The 2024 NFVC responded to our sector’s most urgent and emerging professional development needs by building skills for applying a climate resilience and risk management lens to farm viability work and exploring frameworks for ethics in farm viability programming.
A primary contributor to the success of the 2024 NFVC was the commitment to building equity and economic justice into the conference’s professional development programming, as well as working to diversify racial and geographic attendance over successive conferences. That success is highlighted by the fact that 96% of post-conference survey respondents reported that they are better equipped to serve underserved producers as a result of the conference.
Farm Viability & Access to Capital Fellowship
Experienced and well-trained farm viability professionals are agents of deep-rooted change.
Our experience in the field demonstrates that farmers get the most out of working with advisors who have walked a mile in their shoes and who have personal experience in the day-to-day realities of running a multi-faceted business balancing financial, social, cultural, and sustainability goals.
This year, Carrot and the Alliance responded directly to the need to center BIPOC service providers within the ecosystem of support that we and our partners are weaving for our region’s underserved producers by launching the Farm Viability and Access to Capital Fellowship. This multi-year program uplifts BIPOC trainees by providing a welcome entry point into the sector, investing in the human capacity and connectivity required to ensure underserved farmers have access to the capital and personalized business support they need to build prosperity.
We are pleased that Marina Ortega joined Carrot in September 2024 as our first Fellow. With the support of Carrot’s staff and partners, Marina is preparing to take tangible steps to knit farmers and service providers together into a fabric of trusting relationships that open doors and empower exponential growth for underserved growers in a way that has not been possible in an often under-resourced and fragmented sector.
Meet Carrot's Clients
Our clients are entrepreneurs with ambition and grit. They work tirelessly to put food on tables, build a bright future for their families, and steward the land for the next generation. It is an honor to uplift their work, and we are excited to share a few of their stories of tenacity in turbulent times.
Forging New Futures
Jean Arthur Jeanty and Sarah Jean Paul launched Jared’s Farm, named for their son, in 2022. They had farmed for years before arriving in the U.S. and were now rebuilding their lives and farm business in their new home.
Jean Arthur worked with Carrot to refine their business plan; secure the mix of short and long-term capital he needed to build his business; and transition the farm to land with more secure tenure, productive acreage, and agriculturally viable soils.
Fueled by his expertise, his values as a grower and business owner, and by the success of his first season in the States, Jean Arthur is well on his way to achieving his long-term goal of providing sustainability and financial stability for his family, his farm, and his community.
Learn more about Jean Arthur, Sarah, and Jared’s Farm here.
Cultivating Community Connection
Lori and Venus Corriveau bought Little Dipper Farm in 2021 with a dream of using the vast acreage to bring people together after the isolation of the pandemic.
The pair worked with The Carrot Project early in the process of purchasing their property, and after two seasons of rapid growth, they circled back for assistance prioritizing income streams. Venus and Lori worked with their Carrot Project advisor to create a financial tracking system, giving them the information they needed to evaluate the right enterprise mix.
Now Lori and Venus are developing the business around a “cocktail” of complementary enterprises run by like-minded entrepreneurs leasing parcels of their land. From vegetable production to beekeeping, weekly foraging tours to festivals, farm dinners to glamping, Little Dipper Farm is offering community connection and a pathway to financial viability for Venus, Lori, and their family.
Learn more about Venus, Lori, and Little Dipper Farm here.
Programs Team
Benneth Phelps | Executive Director
Julia Grigg | Deputy Director
Jeff Cole | Client Services Specialist
Cian Dalzell | Senior Business Advisor & Financial Education Specialist
Laurie Freyer | Development Specialist
Marina Ortega | Relationships & Sector Development Fellow
Sherlene Rodriguez | Farm & Food Business Advisor
Rich Schwartz | Conference Programming Coordinator
Meet the rest of our Farm and Food Business Advising and Back Office Teams here.
Advisory Board
Adam Bishop | Farmland Conservation Specialist
Kalila Booker-Cassano | Health & Environmental Funders Network
Jess Brooks | Social Finance
Holly Fowler | Northbound Ventures Consulting
Christopher Laughton | Farm Credit East
Claire Morenon | Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture
Maham Rizvi | DAISA Enterprises
Dorothy Suput | DSuput Consulting, The Carrot Project Founder & Former Executive Director