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