Summer Conference, Biodiversity, Field Days

The 2011 Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA) Summer Conference with Northeast Animal-Power Field Days, takes place at University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Aug. 12 to Aug. 14.

More than 225 workshops include topics that range from farming, gardening and land care to draft animals in farming and forestry; plus homesteading, sustainability, nutrition, food politics, activism, and even more.

Keynote speakers are Eric Toensmeier and Ignacio Chapela.

Toensmeier has spent 20 years exploring edible perennial agroecosystems and authored the award-winning book "Perennial Vegetables" and co-authored "Edible Forest Gardens" with Dave Jacke. Eric studies the potential of perennial farming systems to mitigate climate disruption and to provide a stable source of food and livelihood for communities in the Northeast and globally.

Chapela is actively involved in debates on technology policy and the consequences of declining biodiversity. An associate professor of biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and a senior scientist at the Norwegian Center for Biosafety, Dr. Chapela exposes both the ecological dangers of genetic engineering and the political crisis of accountability that threatens food security.

Special workshops designed for children and teens.

Music and dance, an old-fashioned country fair, farmer's market, games.

CT NOFA's New Farmer Program

New, young, and emerging farmers have several opportunities coming up to network, resource share and support efforts to farm and keep farming in Connecticut.

A "Getting Started in Organic Farming Conference" is set for Jan. 29 in New Haven. A beginning farmer track at the Annual Conference on March 5 in Manchester. We have scholarship funding to help beginning farmers pay for registration to those conferences.

All new and beginning farmers to participate, whether they are organic or not.
The USDA defines a "beginning farmer" as one farming for fewer than 10 years.

The project was supported by the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, USDA, Grant # 2010-49400-21847.  The CT NOFA New Connecticut Farmer Program is supported in part by a USDA Beginning Farmer grant in collaboration with NOFA NY and other NOFA chapters.