National Farm Viability Conference: Full Schedule

arrow_back View All Dates

8:00am MDT

Side Meeting: Lenders Stronger Together - By Invitation

Thursday September 24, 2026 8:00am - 9:30am MDT

This session follows from two farm lenders meeting held at NFVC in 2024. The objective is to strengthen connections and information sharing among innovative agricultural lenders. We’ll focus on how collaboration can strengthen our work and maintain capacity to support and protect clients, particularly in the current funding and political environment. We anticipate that participants will come away with stronger relationships, a better understanding of potential areas for collaboration, and insights from each other's organizational and program strategies.

This side meeting is a closed session - participation is by invitation only.

Speakers

Dorothy Suput

Principal, DSuput Consulting

Dorothy has over 30 years of non-profit leadership experience. I work with non-profits to design and strengthen programs. My work helps expand capital and land access and the availability of business development programs that promote farm and food-business economic viability. I am... Read More →

Reggie Knox

CEO, California FarmLink

Reggie has been working in farm business and sustainable agriculture development for 30 years. He serves as the CEO of California FarmLink where he facilitated the organization’s emergence as a CDFI in 2013. FarmLink has provided $95 million in financing to over 600 farms for operating... Read More →

Thursday September 24, 2026 8:00am - 9:30am MDT
Potters

Accessing Capital

10:00am MDT

The Algorithm in the Room: Generative AI and Farm Viability Roundtable

Thursday September 24, 2026 10:00am - 11:30am MDT

Potters

Generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude have rapidly moved from novelty to fixture in many industries — and agriculture is no exception.
Farmers are arriving at advisor meetings having already used AI to generate business plans, brainstorm decisions, answer production questions, and draft marketing materials. Meanwhile, farmer-facing technologies are integrating AI features that blur the line between traditional software and generative AI. Most of us have been navigating this in real time, without much chance to step back. This roundtable is an opportunity to pause, compare notes, and share what we are seeing on the ground.
We will open with a brief grounding presentation to query group experience and establish shared language, followed by a facilitated peer discussion structured in two parts:

Farmer & TA Interactions: Where is generative AI proving useful? Where has its use been surprising, innovative, or concerning? How accessible are these tools across different farming communities?
Service Provider Ethics & Realities: How are we using AI in our own work? How do we handle an AI-generated business plan we know is unreliable? How do our personal feelings and inherited model biases impact our reactions?

Rather than debating AI's merits in the abstract, we will ground this segment in practitioner ethics and real-time decisions. Our goal is to surface what we are collectively learning — and to leave with a clearer sense of how peers across the country are navigating these tools in farm viability work.

Speakers

Stevie Schafenacker

Principal, Independent Advisor

Stevie Schafenacker is an independent farm advisor who has worked with New England farmers for the past 10 years. She has provided business planning, financial literacy, and strategic decision-making assistance to more than 90 individual farm and food clients since charting her own... Read More →

Jesse Wright

Agricultural Business Management Field Specialist, UNH Cooperative Extension

Jesse Wright is an Agricultural Business Management Field Specialist at UNH Cooperative Extension. In this role, she works with farmers throughout the state to build strong business skills and develop supportive networks. Her education and technical assistance center on marketing... Read More →

Thursday September 24, 2026 10:00am - 11:30am MDT
Potters

Business Planning and Development, Program Design Development Management and Funding