For 40 years, FarmNet has helped NY farms grow

When Melissa Keller was in third grade, she shared her dream to own a farm someday. Her classmates laughed at her — girls couldn’t be farmers.

Years later, Keller proved them wrong with the help of NY FarmNet, a free farm consulting service operating out of the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, part of the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business, and in partnership with the Cornell University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Since it was founded 40 years ago, FarmNet has assisted thousands of New York farmers like Keller, pioneering a new farm consulting model that combines financial services with mental health support.

“I thought they’d probably laugh at me because I’m a woman and I have no business experience,” Keller said. “But FarmNet set me up with the absolute best team. They gave me so much support on every level as far as planning, financials, structure of business and obtaining the right legal paperwork. I told them over and over again, I could not have done what I did without their support.”

Before FarmNet helped her make the transition to agriculture, Keller had achieved a successful career as an emergency room nurse. But after twenty years in healthcare, she recognized a crossroads in her life.

“I was juggling my family, a full-time job and doing master’s work to become a nurse practitioner. I had a moment of clarity where I asked what I really wanted out of my life and it was like everything went silent around me,” she said. “I felt like I always had to push down my yearnings, but they were still there.”

She and her husband began exploring farms for sale, and Keller was instantly taken with a peaceful plot of farmland in Machias, NY, bordered by a small pond. They bought it the winter of 2016, and Keller established Perfectly Blended Farm, achieving a dream of decades.

Though she found the work extremely rewarding, Keller faced several disadvantages as she established her farm. She lacked agribusiness experience and didn’t have the means to hire workers, so she had to handle bookkeeping, animal care, landscaping and business planning on her own, figuring it out along the way.

Keller spotted a FarmNet flier and decided to take a chance asking them for help. They sent two consultants to her farm to assess the land and recommend next steps for her business.

“We evaluate what farmers’ options are, given their resources, their skill set and their location,” said Gregory Mruk, executive director of NY FarmNet. “Then our consultants guide farmers through the process and help them evaluate results.”

Keller’s consultants evaluated what her farm could support then helped her establish multiple income streams. With the rising price of fertilizer, animal feed and fuel, the slim margins in agriculture are narrowing further, putting pressure on small farms to expand offerings.

“It’s not just me. I’ve talked to quite a few other farmers that feel like they have to offer different products,” Keller said. “They can’t just do one product anymore and make it. I’ve known several dairy farmers that went under and now they’re doing beef along with other things. More and more these days, I think that you have to have multiple sources of income.”

When it was founded in 1986, FarmNet was mostly focused on supporting dairy farmers, which made up roughly 70% of their cases at the time. But over the past four decades, FarmNet gradually shifted its operational structure to keep pace with changing realities in agriculture and more effectively support the needs of farmers like Keller.

 “Now, only about 25% of our cases are dairy, which is on track with the declining number of dairy farms in the state,” Mruk said. “What you see growing is beef, cash grains, vegetables, particularly in the farm-to-consumer area, and small-scale farms. So, we began to bring on consultants with those backgrounds.”

Keller successfully expanded Perfectly Blended’s offerings from produce alone to include eggs, maple syrup, jam and meat. But her experimentation paid off the most when she tried farm rentals. She bought a small camper for $400 and towed it back to the farm, listing it on Airbnb.

“I made nearly three times what I put into it that first summer. I couldn’t believe it,” Keller said. “The next year, I added a second camper, then a third and fourth, and they were booked every weekend. It’s become our biggest money maker. We sell beef, pork, chicken, turkey and vegetables, but we still make more on the farm stays, and the farm stays drive sales of everything else.”

The venture’s incredible success has sparked Keller’s ambition to open new farm experiences her guests can try. Eventually, she hopes to set up goat yoga, goat milking and hayrides around the property.

“I think people want to experience little pieces of farm life,” Keller said. “What does it look like? What does it sound like? How does it feel? I really want to give people that experience, because it’s what I wanted my entire life.”

FarmNet’s financial advice varies from farmer to farmer, depending on their land, skillset and interests. As agritourism booms in New York State — statewide agritourism income more than tripling to $55 million from 2007 to 2022 — it’s likely that they’ll assist other farmers in building farm experiences. But Mruk says that FarmNet’s philosophy is to never prescribe solutions to farmers. They’d rather show up and listen.

“As much as farming evolves, one thing doesn’t change. It’s human beings,” Mruk said. “The experience of being a human doesn’t change, which means all farmers are going to experience grief, frustration, stress and uncertainty. Part of me wants to say, I hope FarmNet doesn’t need to exist 40 years from now. But I’ve concluded there’ll always be a need for some sort of FarmNet.”