HVADC People: Dorothy Suput

Dorothy Suput has spent nearly three decades helping farm and food businesses go from niche to necessary, first as founder and Executive Director of The Carrot Project, a Massachusetts-based nonprofit focused on farm viability and access to capital, and now as a consultant carrying that work forward.

“When I started, people asked, ‘Why are you doing that? Why do you care about food and agriculture?’” she said. “They didn’t get it then. Now they get it.”

That perspective shapes her work with HVADC today. Her ties to the organization run back over a decade, to when she was scouting partners for a Berkshire-region initiative at The Carrot Project. She reached out to HVADC Executive Director Todd Erling for coffee — a conversation that grew into one of HVADC’s longest-running consulting relationships.

That early meeting turned into a lasting partnership. Over the next several years, Suput and Erling worked closely on lending and business technical assistance. Along with Ela Chapin of Vermont, they went on to co-found the Agricultural Viability Alliance (AVA), a national community of practice for agribusiness advisors that also stewards the National Farm Viability Conference.

"Dorothy and I have been continuing a reciprocal conversation since our very first meeting,” said Erling. “We built the Agricultural Viability Alliance together because we shared a belief that farm and food businesses deserve the same kind of serious, sustained support as any other industry. She brings that same rigor to her work with HVADC today — she doesn't just tell us what's working, she pushes us to figure out what's not."

A Front-Row Seat to Growth

That history became the foundation for Suput’s independent practice, which she launched in 2022 after leaving The Carrot Project. Her consulting practice focuses on organizational and program strategy and development for nonprofits, Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) and impact investors working to expand capital, farmland access and business advising for farm and food enterprises.

HVADC brought her in to help with market analysis for the launch of its sister organization, the Farm and Food Growth Fund (FFGF), as well as work on an agricultural resilience loan fund in Ulster County.

Along the way, she’s watched HVADC transform. “HVADC has grown tremendously,” she said, from a small team to a complex organization that administers state grants, runs its own lending programs and spun off the Farm and Food Growth Fund as a sister entity. “It’s been a thrill…to see the hard work of its leadership and team to develop into the organization that it is today.”

She pointed to HVADC’s work with the state Department of Agriculture and Markets as a particular strength. “There’s no replacement for government money to help develop new industries and sectors within a region or a state,” she said.

Rethinking Technical Assistance

Suput’s work with HVADC and FFGF involves improving the organizations’ business technical assistance (BTA) for HVADC’s Meat Processing Expansion Grant (MPEG) program. Working alongside HVADC Business Services Manager Taylor Mignone and Deputy Director Mary Ann Johnson, she’s building a more integrated BTA system — one that connects grants, lending and advising instead of running them in silos. She sees this as a real opportunity for grantees: pairing an important source of follow-on capital with the grants businesses have already received.

As part of that work, she created a new client assessment that explores finance, staffing and systems rather than simply asking grantees which program they want to join. She also streamlined the process for pairing clients with consultants.

"It was too much to ask the business to meet multiple times before they're really discussing a contract," she said. Now consultants join the assessment conversations from the start, eliminating a step and getting businesses to a scope of work faster.

That hands-on problem-solving reflects how Suput thinks about the advisor's role — part mentor, part trainer, part sounding board, depending on what a business needs. "In the end, it's all about trust," she said. "The client knows who to call and sees the advisor as a resource."

Passing It Forward

Alongside the MPEG work, Suput has taken on a mentoring role with Mignone, a newer HVADC staffer with a commercial lending background who's being positioned as an internal navigator for BTA across the organization's programs. Together they've built an assessment to map out the skills and training he'll need to grow into the role.

"Dorothy combines kindness with a strong work ethic, bringing both expertise and precision to everything she does,” said Mignone. “Her thoughtful and meticulous approach makes her someone others can always rely on."

It's a part of the job Suput said she's especially looking forward to. She described herself as "not really a moment person" but "an arc person" — someone who sees the long view of an organization's growth rather than single milestones. After three decades in the field, she said watching someone new commit to farm and food work — and helping him bring fresh ideas to the organization and the sector — is one of the most rewarding parts of her work with HVADC.