NW Michigan Food and Farming Network Report to the Community 2015 Report to the Community | Page 37

2015 Report to the community

The Small Business Development
Centers and Agribusiness
62% of counseling
hours helped ag sector
By Annie Olds
Small Business Development Center
The Small Business Development Center (SBDC) of Northwest
Michigan is a program of Networks
Northwest at the regional level, and
is funded in large part by the Small
Business Administration (SBA) and
Michigan Economic Development
Corporation (MEDC). SBDC serves
a broad array of small businesses
from the start-up phase to growth,
with the agriculture sector being a
key group of entrepreneurs and producers that make up a large part of
our regional SDBC portfolio.
With a small staff of one full-time
and four part-time consultants in
2014, the Northwest SBDC region
provided more than 1,850 counseling
Impact Category

Amy Jo Prater, right, and her business partner, Jess Taylor, have been working
together since 2007 operating The Plump Pumpkin. (Photo: Annie Olds)

hours to 286 clients, 62 percent of
which fit into the agriculture sector;

Agricultural Sector

Full I