Agriculture Business Plan Template
Written by Dave Lavinsky
Agriculture Business Plan
Over the past 20+ years, we have helped over 500 entrepreneurs and farm owners create business plans to start and grow their agricultural companies.
If you’re unfamiliar with creating an agriculture or farm business plan, you may think creating one will be a time-consuming and frustrating process. For most entrepreneurs it is, but for you, it won’t be since we’re here to help. We have the experience, resources, and knowledge to help you create a good business plan.
In this article, you will learn some background information on why business planning is important. Then, you will learn how to write an agriculture business plan step-by-step so you can create your plan today.
Download our Ultimate Business Plan Template here >
What is an Agriculture Business Plan?
A business plan provides a snapshot of your agricultural business as it stands today, and lays out your growth plan for the next five years. It is a valuable tool that explains your business goals and your strategies for reaching them. It also includes market research to support your plans.
Why You Need a Business Plan for an Agriculture Business
If you’re looking to start an agricultural business or grow your existing agricultural company, you need a business plan. A business plan will help you raise funding, if needed, and plan out the growth of your farm to improve your chances of success. Your agricultural business plan is a living document that should be updated annually as your company grows and changes.
Sources of Funding for Agricultural Businesses
With regard to funding, the main sources of funding for an agricultural business are personal savings, credit cards, bank loans, and angel investors. When it comes to bank loans, banks will want to review a comprehensive business plan and gain confidence that you will be able to repay your loan and interest. To acquire this confidence, the loan officer will not only want to ensure that your financials are reasonable, but they will also want to see a professional plan. Such a plan will give them the confidence that you can successfully and professionally operate a business. Personal savings and bank loans are the most common funding paths for agricultural companies.
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How to Write a Business Plan for an Agricultural Business
If you want to start an agricultural business or expand your current one, you need a business plan. A good farm business plan should include 10 sections as follows:
Executive Summary
Company overview, industry analysis, customer analysis, competitive analysis, marketing plan, operations plan, management team, financial plan.
Your executive summary provides an introduction to your business plan, but it is normally the last section you write because it provides a summary of each key section of your plan. The goal of your executive summary is to quickly engage the reader. Explain to them the kind of farm business you are running and the status. For example, are you a startup, do you have an agricultural business that you would like to grow, or do you have a farming operation that you would like to sell? Next, provide an overview of each of the subsequent sections of your plan.
- Give a brief overview of the agricultural industry.
- Discuss the type of farm you are operating.
- Detail your direct competitors. Give an overview of your target customers.
- Provide a snapshot of your marketing strategy. Identify the key members of your team.
- Offer an overview of your financial plan.
In your company overview, you will detail the type of agricultural production you are operating.
For example, you might specialize in one of the following types of agricultural businesses:
- Animal feed manufacturing : the production and sale of food formulas for farm animals.
- Agrichemical and seed manufacturing : the production and sale of agrichemicals (e.g., fertilizers, pesticides, and fungicides) and seeds to farmers that support the growth of their crops.
- Agricultural engineering : development, testing, and implementation of new agriculture tools and machinery to improve the process for farmers.
- Biofuel manufacturing : the production of energy from biomass.
- Crop production : the process of growing and harvesting a variety of crops such as fruits, vegetables, and grains.
In addition, the company overview needs to provide information about the business history.
Include answers to questions such as:
- When and why did you start the business?
- What milestones have you achieved to date? Milestones could include reaching X number of harvests per year, the number of customers served, or reaching $X amount in revenue.
- Your legal business Are you incorporated as an S-Corp? An LLC? A sole proprietorship? Explain your legal structure here.
In your industry or market analysis, you need to provide an overview of the agricultural industry. While this may seem unnecessary, it serves multiple purposes.
First, researching the agricultural industry educates you. It helps you understand the market in which you are operating.
Secondly, market research can improve your marketing strategy, particularly if your analysis identifies industry trends.
The third reason is to prove to readers that you are an expert in your industry. By conducting the research and presenting it in your plan, you achieve just that.
The following questions should be answered in this section:
- How big is the agricultural industry (in dollars)?
- Is the market declining or increasing?
- Who are the key competitors in the market?
- Who are the key suppliers in the market?
- What trends are affecting the industry?
- What is the industry’s growth forecast over the next 5 – 10 years?
- What is the relevant market size? That is, how big is the potential target market for your agricultural business? You can extrapolate such a figure by assessing the size of the market in the entire country and then applying that figure to your local population.
The customer analysis section must detail the customers you serve and/or expect to serve.
The following are examples of customer segments: individuals, schools, families, and corporations.
As you can imagine, the customer segment(s) you choose will have a great impact on the type of agricultural business you operate. Clearly, schools would respond to different marketing promotions than corporations, for example.
Try to break out your target market into segments in terms of their demographic and psychographic profiles. With regards to demographics, including a discussion of the ages, genders, locations, and income levels of the potential customers you seek to serve.
Psychographic profiles explain the wants and needs of your target audience. The more you can recognize and define these needs, the better you will do in attracting and retaining your customers.
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Your competitive analysis should identify the indirect and direct competitors your business faces and then focus on the latter.
Direct competitors are other farms and agricultural producers.
Indirect competitors are other options that customers have to purchase from that aren’t directly competing with your product or service. This includes other types of farmers, wholesalers, and distributors.
For each such competitor, provide an overview of their business and document their strengths and weaknesses. Unless you once worked at your competitors’ businesses, it will be impossible to know everything about them. But you should be able to find out key things about them such as:
- What types of customers do they serve?
- What type of agricultural business are they?
- What is their pricing (premium, low, etc.)?
- What are they good at?
- What are their weaknesses?
With regards to the last two questions, think about your answers from the customers’ perspective. And don’t be afraid to ask your competitors’ customers what they like most and least about them.
The final part of your competitive analysis section is to document your areas of competitive advantage. For example:
- Will you make it easier for your customers to engage with you?
- Will you offer products or services that your competition doesn’t?
- Will you provide better customer service?
- Will you offer better pricing?
Think about ways you will outperform your competition and document them in this section of your plan.
Traditionally, a marketing plan includes the four P’s: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. For an agriculture business, your marketing strategy should include the following:
Product : In the product section, you should reiterate the type of agricultural company that you documented in your company overview. Then, detail the specific products or services you will be offering. For example, will you produce fruit, soy, or vegetable products?
Price : Document the prices you will offer and how they compare to your competitors. Essentially in the product and price sub-sections of your plan, you are presenting the products and/or services you offer and their prices.
Place : Place refers to the site of your agricultural company. Document where your company is situated and mention how the site will impact your success. For example, is your agricultural business located on a small or large farm near your customer base? And, will you operate one or multiple locations? Discuss how your site might be the ideal location for your customers.
Promotions : The final part is where you will document how you will drive potential customers to your location(s). The following are some promotional methods you might consider:
- Advertise in local papers, radio stations and/or magazines
- Reach out to websites
- Distribute flyers
- Attend farmers markets
- Engage in email marketing
- Advertise on social media platforms
- Improve the SEO (search engine optimization) on your website for targeted keywords
While the earlier sections of your business plan explained your goals, your operations plan describes how you will meet them. Your operations plan should have two distinct sections as follows.
Everyday short-term processes include all of the tasks involved in running your farm business, including scheduling employees, tracking inventory, accepting orders and payments, and meeting with customers.
Long-term goals are the milestones you hope to achieve. These could include the dates when you expect to reach your Xth harvest, or when you hope to generate $X in revenue. It could also be when you expect to expand your farm business to a new region.
To demonstrate your potential to succeed, a strong management team is essential. Highlight your key players’ backgrounds, emphasizing those skills and experiences that prove their ability to grow a company.
Ideally, you and/or your team members have direct experience in managing agricultural businesses. If so, highlight this experience and expertise. But also highlight any experience that you think will help your business succeed.
If your team is lacking, consider assembling an advisory board. An advisory board would include 2 to 8 individuals who would act as mentors to your business. They would help answer questions and provide strategic guidance. If needed, look for advisory board members with experience in managing an agriculture business, or owning their own farm.
Your financial plan should include your 5-year financial statement broken out both monthly or quarterly for the first year and then annually. Your financial statements include your income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statements.
Income Statement
An income statement is more commonly called a Profit and Loss statement or P&L. It shows your revenue and then subtracts your costs to show whether you turned a profit or not.
In developing your income statement, you need to devise assumptions. For example, how many pounds of each crop do you plan to yield each season? And what is your sales strategy to grow by 2% or 10% per year? As you can imagine, your choice of assumptions will greatly impact the financial forecasts for your business. As much as possible, conduct research to try to root your assumptions in reality.
Balance Sheets
Balance sheets show your assets and liabilities. While balance sheets can include much information, try to simplify them to the key items you need to know about. For instance, if you spend $50,000 on building out your farm business, this will not give you immediate profits. Rather it is an asset that will hopefully help you generate profits for years to come. Likewise, if a lender writes you a check for $50,000, you don’t need to pay it back immediately. Rather, that is a liability you will pay back over time.
Cash Flow Statement
Your cash flow statement will help determine how much money you need to start or grow your business, and ensure you never run out of money. What most entrepreneurs and business owners don’t realize is that you can turn a profit but run out of money and go bankrupt.
When creating your Income Statement and Balance Sheets be sure to include several of the key costs needed in starting or growing a farm business:
- Cost of farm equipment and supplies
- Operating expenses
- Payroll or salaries paid to staff
- Business insurance
- Other start-up costs (if you’re a new business) like legal expenses, permits, computer software, and equipment
Attach your full financial projections in the appendix of your plan along with any supporting documents that make your plan more compelling. For example, you might include your farm’s location lease or a list of agricultural equipment and machinery used on your farm.
Free Business Plan Template for a Farm or Agriculture Business
You can download our farm business plan PDF template here.
Agriculture Business Plan Summary
Putting together a business plan for your agriculture business will improve your company’s chances of success. The process of developing your plan will help you better understand your target market, your competition, and your customers. You will also gain a marketing plan to better attract and serve customers, an operations plan to focus your efforts, and financial projections that give you goals to strive for and keep your company focused.
Growthink’s Ultimate Business Plan Template allows you to quickly and easily write your business plan.
Additional Resources for Starting an Agriculture Business
- How To Start a Farm
- Sample Farm Business Plan
- Starting a New Agricultural Business
- Small and Mid-Sized Farmer Resources
- Starting a Sustainable Agriculture Business
- Beginning Farmers and Ranchers Loans
- Business Resources for Those Starting to Farm or for an Existing Farm
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