Growing
Nature-Based
Enterprises in
Appalachia
Learning
Maple Education Programs: You can tap into one of Appalachia’s most abundant resources and build a successful syrup business with Future Generations University. Learn about sustainable land-use practices and woodlot management, while receiving maple syrup training through our certificate program, public seminars, or webinar series.
Research
Syrup Research: Stay up to date on where the sector is heading in Appalachia through Future Generations University’s ongoing research projects. Build a supplemental income stream for yourself through maple and alternative tree syrups such as birch, sycamore, and black walnut.
Action
Coaching: Ensure your syrup production success with comprehensive coaching, webinars, and resources as part of our network of organizations and producers across Appalachia. Email us with questions, comments, and feedback on how we can grow this traditional industry sustainably.
Join Future Generation’s maple commodity specialist Mike Rechlin in a presentation given to the North American Council of Maple Syrup Producers titled: “Why do you make maple syrup?” And “Who really cares.” In this presentation we’ll follow the community engagement of Family Roots Farm and learn of the importance of buying local to rural communities. In answering the two questions posed by the presentation title, we’ll see the importance of placing syrup making in the larger contexts of community development, health and the environment.
Appalachia is not the first place that comes to mind when most of us think of maple syrup, but with more tappable maple trees than Vermont, it should be! This unique collection of recipes and family traditions are from those who collect and cook with maple products from West Virginia and the surrounding mountains of Central Appalachia.
Out of the Woods: Enriching Your Maple Business
A Free Webinar Series
This monthly webinar series covers a broad array of topics of interest to the maple syrup producer: from tree science and woodlot management to marketing and taxes. Featuring industry experts and producers, each session will have a presentation or two followed by Q&A. Stay tuned as the schedule rolls out.
Join us for our next webinar!
Watch free webinars for maple producers
Standards and Grading
Keeping Safe During COVID: Steps to Keeping Your Agribusiness Open
Navigating the WV Sugar Operation Review Preparedness Manual
Record-keeping for Production & Business
Sanitation Session
Climate Change Impacts and Risks to Southern Maple Production
The Science Behind The Sweetness of Sap Flow
Enrich Your Maple Business
Finding New Markets
Business & Finances
Funding for part of this webinar series was made possible by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agricultural Marketing Service through grant AM190100XXXXG074. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the USDA.
Our Partners in Service
- West Virginia Department of Agriculture
- West Virginia Department of Veterans Assistance
- The Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation
- West Virginia Rural Business Development Division of the USDA
- West Virginia Veterans and Heros to Agriculture
- West Virginia Food and Farm Coalition
- Appalachian Sustainable Development
- Garret County Economic Development
- West Virginia Maple Syrup Producers Association
- Agricultural Marketing Service—USDA, ACER Access
- Experience Learning
Research
- Ohio State University College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences
- Penn State University College of Agricultural Sciences
- Robert C Byrd Institute at Marshall University
- USDA Northeast SARE
- Virginia Tech College of Natural Resources and Environment