Workshops

Friday, February 16 | 3-4:15 p.m. 

The Food and Farm Movement

A New Farm Bill: Where We’re at and Where We’re Going

Jesse Womack, National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition

Congress has been working to reauthorize the farm bill, the single largest piece of agricultural legislation in the U.S. Get an up-to-date breakdown of what’s in the current bill, where it is on its path to passage, what you can do to help shape it, and how to prepare for the changes it brings to USDA programs.

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Sustainable Foundations

NRCS Programs for All Farms: Conservation Planning and Programs and Land Preservation Easements

Angel Arehart, Abby McClain, Jason Undercoffer, USDA NRCS

Through an overview of conservation practices and their use and applicability for organic producers, gain a basic understanding of USDA-NRCS programs available for preserving agricultural land. Cover a wide variety of conservation practices, as well as expanded programs for land preservation that do not require entities to hold the easements.

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Backyards, Lots, and Small Plots

Benefits of Fungi

Cheryl and Vernon Clements, Melanated Mushrooms

Discover the nutritional and medicinal benefits of key mushroom varieties, exploring their role not just in individual well-being, but also in soil health and sustainable farming practices. Gain practical insights for farmers, learning how to integrate mushroom cultivation for soil remediation and companion planting. There will be informational sheets on mushroom attributes, empowering you with the knowledge for a holistic and sustainable approach to health and farming.

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Specialty Crops

Profitable Tunnel Rotations

Dana Hilfinger, Johnny’s Selected Seeds and Roots, Fruits and Shoots

Are you trying to find an alternative to growing tomatoes in your tunnel year after year? Curious to see how other growers plan out their tunnel rotations? Delve into profitable tunnel crops and rotations that work for farmers, seeing different examples of tunnel rotations used by commercial growers around the Midwest. The floor will then open for farmer-to-farmer learning, encouraging everyone to share what crops and tunnel rotations have worked for you.

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Grain Crops

Navigating Turbulent Organic Grain Markets

Carmen Fernholz, A-Frame Farm

You put in money, a lot of time, possibly some prayers, and now you have a crop. Now what? In order to get the fair price for your work, find a buyer and a trucker, and have the confidence to be paid as promised, hear from the Organic Farmers’ Agency for Relationship Marketing on the best moves.

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Livestock and Poultry

Incorporating Silvopasture into Your Livestock Operation

Molly Sowash and CJ Morgan, MoSo Farm

Trees bring many benefits to a livestock operation’s bottom line. Get a practical guide to incorporating trees into a pasture-based livestock operation by learning from MoSo Farm’s experience and their considerations for getting started.

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Personal Resilience

Internships and Learning Contracts to Promote Farm Career Development

Katy Rogers, Teter Organic Farm

By investing in learning plans that improve employee retention and encourage advancement, this farm founded a successful internship program. Glean their resources for applied training and how they designated small plots as learning laboratories managed by students. OEFFA’s Fair Farms program will also discuss the Agricultural Justice Project guidelines for compensating interns and developing effective learning contracts. 

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Business and Marketing

Unconventional and Innovative Farm Design

Jonathan Greer, Eden’s Blessing Family Farm

Unconventional farm design is about viewing an agriculture business through the lens of community development, specifically aiming to meet a community’s needs. Learn how to take your vision and make incremental steps towards empowering and equipping your community to become more self-sustainable. Understand how to create a strategic plan for your organization and carve the first steps towards developing a community readiness assessment.

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Community Conversations

Growing Seed Crops and Seed Swap!

Lindsay Klaunig, Trouvaille Farm, Kaleb Wilkins, Rooted in Thyme

This informal conversation about seeds will offer insight into contract growing, how seed growing can be integrated into other farming and gardening settings, participatory breeding projects, the state of the seed industry, and what we can do to strengthen our local seed community. And then we’ll have a seed swap! Seeds will be provided from the speakers’ own farms and gardens, and some donated from companies. Participants are encouraged to bring their own to share; it can be your own collected seeds or leftover packets.

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