A few years ago, the Yevzelman’s found a once in a lifetime leasing opportunity through MIFarmLink.com so they took it. Cedar Field Farm, located in Belleville, Michigan, is a market garden style farm. They sell vegetables, herbs, mushrooms, and flowers.
While Simon has 10 years of agriculture experience, this was his first foray into small scale specialty crop farming. Combined with Caitlin's career in marketing & data analytics, they had a solid foundation to start a small farming business together. However, knowing they did not have a lot of knowledge in the financial accounting side of running a business, they started looking into accounting services and the CultivateGrowth grant through GreenStone.
They felt GreenStone was a good fit since the association provides financial services, specifically in agriculture. They found their tax accountant, Emilie Reyome, and shortly after were approved for the CultivateGrowth grant to help pay for their first-time use of GreenStone’s tax and accounting services. Since it was their first time as entrepreneurs, they didn’t know what they needed as far as tax filings and year-end income tax planning.
“Emilie was super informative in helping us learn the ins and outs of tax and accounting services for our business. She was always available, even virtually, and very responsive to any questions we had. In addition to her being nice and responsive, it was a wonderful opportunity to learn more about tax reports, other services GreenStone provides, and what the overall process looks like. Emilie met us where we were and helped teach us how to build a sustainable business with GreenStone.”
Caitlin appreciates her experience with GreenStone’s CultivateGrowth grant wasn’t just helpful in learning about tax and accounting services, or how to build their plan, but also in saving them time and money. She said, “It could take us months trying to file things. Not only are we saving time, but we also get to spend that time growing the business rather than on the nitty gritty tax and accounting parts.”
With the help of GreenStone’s CultivateGrowth grant and tax and accounting services, Caitlin and Simon gained important lessons from learning how to use balance sheets and templates, to how to budget accordingly. “Cedar Field Farm could not have grown as much as they did without the help of these programs. They helped tremendously with saving us money, and from learning how to make our business more sustainable, better and run on a smoother process,” Caitlin said.
GreenStone is proud to support other young, beginning, or small farmers like Caitlin and Simon with help from the CultivateGrowth grant. To learn more about our CultivateGrowth program and what possibilities there are for you, click here.
