Business Management

In this section, you’ll find an extensive selection of resources on vegetable crop production and management. Get Penn State Extension’s insight in vegetable farm management and production budgets for vegetables, including community-supported agriculture, crop insurance, farm markets, diversification, and produce grower certification.

Vegetable Farm Management

For small-scale, part-time, and large-scale growers, knowing how and where you can market your crops is key to the success of your vegetable growing business. For growers of specialty or novel vegetables, this is especially important. If you diversify your crops, it becomes very challenging because you have to find a market for each crop.

There is a wide selection of options for marketing your vegetable crops, one of which is roadside markets. For many small-scale vegetable producers, developing a roadside farm market is a viable option. There are also farmers markets where you can market your vegetable crops. In Pennsylvania, there has been a 30% growth in the number of farmers markets across the state since 2010.

Another option that is becoming increasingly attractive is becoming a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm. The benefits of becoming a member of CSA are many, not only as an educational tool, but to encourage people to walk through your door on a regular basis.

For those just starting out as a vegetable farmer, Penn State Extension runs workshops where you’ll learn about farm financial management. There are also Specialty Crop Tours for Young Growers.

Crop planning is key to the success of your business, and if you’re going to be employing workers to help with the vegetable production, for example, in your greenhouses, there are labor laws to be aware of. Top-quality produce is essential for repeat sales, so you should make sure you follow produce packing guidelines.

Production Budgets and Vegetable Crop Insurance

Production budgets form the backbone of your vegetable production. They are a description of the production practices followed for individual crops, the resources required to grow that crop, and the costs involved. Penn State Extension can provide a variety of production budgets. To list just a few, take a look at a red type tomato, heirloom type, and a more generic tomato production budget.

Natural events such as hail storms and drought can cause problems for vegetable growers. Crop insurance can be used to recoup some of the cost of damage caused by natural events, but you have to make sure you get the right coverage. If you purchase crop insurance for processing tomatoes or fresh market tomatoes, you have to know what is covered, where it is available, covered causes of loss, important insurance dates, and many other things.