One question that I get frequently is “what do I need to do to legally start my farm as a business?” While this can be a complex question, there is a pretty good resource at the state level to help guide you through a lot of the forms, licenses, and permits you need to operate a business of any type in New York. It is called NY Business Express. The website is https://www.businessexpress.ny.gov/.

Start with the Starter Guide. It will take you through a discussion about picking a name, choosing a legal structure, hiring employees, licensing and permitting, taxes and insurance. While the information is not necessarily specific to farms, it is (for the most part) the information needed to get started as a business in New York.

You will likely be referred to the Business Wizard. Here are some tips for success in using it for information for a vegetable or fruit farm. The first question will be what kind of a business do you want to start? For primary business there is no option “farm”. Farm related options are:

• Adult Use Cannabis Cultivator
• Greenhouse
• Nursery (retail or wholesale)
• Tree Farm
• Christmas Tree Farm

If you say that you don’t see your business type here and look under the agriculture options, you for ag production these are what you will see (there are other options for markets and dealers but let’s focus on production first). If you are just starting a normal farm and you are not growing nursery plants or growing in a greenhouse and you are not growing cannabis, choose tree farm (yes, I know this is crazy since there business like “starting a video rental business” “floor covering store” and “fishing guide” are listed but “farm” is not. I actually emailed the contact person about this years ago and you can see what a difference it made).

If you follow the wizard through to the end, it does a pretty good job of linking you to the correct NYS websites and forms for the permits and information you need to get started in New York. I do recommend, if you are planning to do both farming and processing or farming and food service or any other type of business that is not production agriculture as part of your farm business that you choose both the primary business and add the secondary business because there may be additional permits or licenses required, differences in taxes and differences in labor laws and regulations.

Strengths: If you are starting a business that has a specific license or permit requirement for New York State this is a good resource to start with because it is easy to miss some. For example, you need a license to sell nursery plants in NYS.

Weaknesses: It does not cover federal requirements and federal programs consistently. It also is focused on business formation so does not cover land use regs like zoning or environmental permitting and compliance that are important to consider when planning a new venture.