Farmer Finance Reflections! Community Call with the Staple Crop Growers Network

Our final gathering in the 2026 Staple Crop Community Call series is an opportunity to reflect and celebrate all the hard work you’ve accomplished. Joined by Croatan Institute, you will make a financial game plan for the winter months that is proactive in starting 2027 on the right foot. Review successful practices for record keeping, understanding enterprise budgets, looking at farm specific accounting, and more! Croatan Institute staff will share additional tools and details about one-on-one tailored approaches to financing for niche farm businesses. 

Speakers Lorena Muñoz-Holladay is a bilingual Accredited Financial Counselor® (AFC®) originally from Santiago, Chile. She holds a degree in Business Administration and Economics from the Catholic University of Chile and brings a diverse professional background in communications, banking, and financial education. After relocating to the United States, Lorena developed a strong interest in financial independence, strategic saving, and wealth building. In 2020, she transitioned into financial counseling, earning her AFC® designation in 2023 and founding Pilar Financiero. Lorena is passionate about empowering individuals and families to improve their financial well-being through budgeting, saving, debt management, and financial planning. She provides bilingual financial guidance in English and Spanish, helping clients build confidence, achieve their goals, and create a stronger financial future.

Josh Humphreys is president and co-founder of Croatan Institute, and director of the Institute’s strategic initiative on “Soil Wealth.” In that capacity he advises farmers, landowners, community groups, and investors on regenerative capital and conservation finance strategies. Josh is also co-founder of the Resilient Southern Legacy and Nature Defense (LAND) Fund, a new joint venture between the Institute and Rural Beacon Initiative to acquire Southern farmland and forests and transition that land into the ownership of local land stewards implementing regenerative strategies and appropriately scaled agrivoltaics and distributed clean energy. Alongside his work at Croatan Institute, Josh also operates Pont Reading Farm, his family’s diversified agroforestry farm in central North Carolina with three primary enterprises: year-round market gardens, pastured poultry, and a licensed nursery focused on agroforestry and native plants and trees. With more than a dozen other small regenerative and organic family farms, he helps steward Piedmont Agrarian Collaborative (PAC), a regional mutual-aid initiative operating a food hub, a direct-to-consumer marketing platform, and a wholesale buying club for seed, feed, and inputs. Finally, he has served on the advisory and governing boards of numerous organizations, including the Green Rural Redevelopment Organization, the Coalition for Responsible Investment at Harvard, and Rodale Institute’s Southeast Organic Center. Currently, he chairs the Finance and Investment Committee of the Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture, the nation’s oldest agricultural organization.

This webinar is part of an ongoing series focused on the food crops that sustain us, connect us to our heritage, and help us adapt to changing climates and food systems. Participants are encouraged to bring questions and share experiences from the field.

Participants will also connect with fellow farmers, and resource providers from Michael Fields Agricultural Institute, Michigan Food & Farming Systems, Fondy Food Center, and Fresher Together. Together, we’ll learn about upcoming workshops, training opportunities, and available one-on-one support. You’ll also be introduced to USDA programs that may be a good fit for your farm business.

This event is free to attend, but registration is required to get the Zoom link. Can’t make it live? Sign up anyway and we’ll send you the recording!

Language interpretation (Spanish, Hmong) is available upon request. Please indicate your need for interpretation on the event registration form, or by emailing Christine Johnson (cjohnson@michaelfields.org) no later than October 15th.

Interpretación en español y hmong disponible a solicitud. Por favor, indique si necesita interpretación en el formulario de registro del evento o enviando un correo electrónico a Christine Johnson (cjohnson@michaelfields.org) a más tardar el 15 de octobre

About Croatan Institute

Croatan Institute is an independent, nonprofit research and action institute. Their mission is to build social equity and ecological resilience by leveraging finance to create pathways to a just economy.

Our speakers are part of Croatan Institute’s FARMWISE Hub initiative. FARMWISE Hub is a platform that provides farmers with the financial literacy skills, information, and resources to expand their business, attract capital, and build wealth. Entrepreneurs anywhere in the US can access the FARMWISE Hub at no cost in both English and Spanish.

About The Staple Crop Growers Network 

 The Staple Crop Growers Network is a community of farmers, gardeners, and food system advocates across the Midwest learning together about staple crops—the calorically dense, versatile crops that connect us to our heritage and nourish our communities every day.

The Staple Crop Growers Network is a project of Michael Fields Agricultural Institute, in partnership with Fresher Together, the Fondy Food Center, and Michigan Food and Farming Systems. This collaboration is supported by funding from the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

About Michael Fields Agricultural Institute

Michael Fields Agricultural Institute is a non-profit organization that has been cultivating resiliency through research, education, and policy work since 1984. With a broad coalition of public and private partners, MFAI supports farmers, food systems and communities in the Upper Midwest and beyond through a range of programs and initiatives. Follow along on Instagram and Facebook for the latest news and events. Learn more and join us at michaelfields.org.

About Michigan Food and Farming Systems (MIFFS)

MIFFS is a statewide nonprofit with a mission to connect beginning and small-scale, diversified farmers, including farmers who underutilize support programs, to each other and resource opportunities to ensure resilient, healthy, vibrant, and viable local food systems. Learn more at www.miffs.org Growing in Michigan? Connect with Hagan hagan@miffs.org 

About Fondy Food Center  

The Fondy Food Center cultivates wellness in the Lindsay Heights and Amani neighborhoods and the Greater Milwaukee Area by focusing on issues of healthy food access and economic opportunity. We operate local farmers markets throughout the year, provide access to land, resources and support to local farmers, and work with partners to build a better food system for our community. Learn more at www.fondymke.org Growing in Wisconsin? Connect with Stephen spetro@fondymarket.org 

About Fresher Together

Fresher Together is a Black and LGBTQ+ owned and led food and farming collaboration dedicated to serving the people in our community with local nourishing foods and restorative spaces for healing, economic development, training and retreat. Learn more at www.freshertogether.com. Growing in Illinois/NW Indiana? Connect with Fresh outreach@freshertogether.com 

 The views and opinions expressed by the speakers in this webinar are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of the Michael Fields Agricultural Institute (MFAI) or partners. The inclusion of these speakers, and the recording, hosting, or sharing of this webinar, does not constitute an endorsement of any individual, organization, product, or service mentioned.