Market Farming

[Lucy Owsley <goodows AT infinet.com>]

-------- Original Message --------
 Subject: PASA Conference - Feb. 8-9: Ikerd, Sneed, Fallon, Brinton,
          Otten, Demas, Pais -- and YOU
    Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 15:52:34 -0500
    From: "Greg Bowman" <gregb AT mrn.org>
Reply-To: <gregb AT mrn.org>
      To: <gregb AT mrn.org>

Please share -- pardon cross-postings.

Healthy Farms and Communities

Focus at 11th PASA Conference

STATE COLLEGE, PA. ? There’s still time to join more than a thousand
farmers and friends who will convene for the 11th annual Farming for the
Future Conference Feb. 8 and 9 in State College, Pa. “Healthy Farms,
Healthy Communities: Our Link to a Sustainable Future” is sponsored by
the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture (PASA) at the
Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel.

Farmers, researchers and ag professionals will be featured in 48
workshops in five time slots. Receiving lots of attention will be “The
Farmers’ Own School of Family Farm Economics,” with other multi-workshop
themes on human nutrition and food, soil and livestock health,
diversifying farm enterprises, grass-based livestock and agriculture
building community.

Keynote speakers are John Ikerd, Professor Emeritus of Agricultural
Economics at University of Missouri, and Cathrine Sneed, executive
director of The Garden Project, San Francisco, Calif. Ikerd has inspired
many farm audiences with his message that a “people-centered”
agriculture allows farmers to succeed by utilizing greater creativity,
dignity of work and attention to social equity
(http://hometown.aol.com/jeikerd ). Sneed will describe how teaching
life-skills to former inmates through commercial urban farming gives a
real chance for them to contribute to their communities once released.
(www.gardenproject.org)

The four"Farmers Own School of Family Farm Economics" sessions are part
of eight workshops dealing with financial aspects of sustainable
farming. A dozen producers will come ready to share their intimate
financial details, using standardized reporting forms. “I’ve been
thinking about this for years,” says series organizer Jim Crawford of
New Morning Farm, in Hustontown, Huntington County. “I didn’t want to
have to settle for one workshop. Finances demand more explanation.”

Experienced vegetable producers will share their farm's financial
records in two sessions on Friday. The intent is to allow others to
learn from their mistakes, successes and financial analysis. Livestock
and dairy producers will hear dairy, beef and poultry farmers use the
same financial reporting system to open up their accounts.

Vegetable farmers who are willing to their share finances will have the
chance in the conference’s final workshop slot. To participate in this
“learning circle” format, contact the PASA office in advance of
theconference to obtain the suggested accounting format.

Other economics topics include:

-- “After 16 Years of Grazing: Keeping It Simple Works the Best.” Art
Thicke reflects on managing life, work and finances on a Minnesota
family dairy farm.

-- “Big Bucks and Capital on the Vegetable Farm.” Five Pennsylvania
farmers explain their struggle with how and when they've made capital
improvements. These farms each started “from scratch” from 19 to 30
years ago.

-- “Not Just Chicken Scratch—100 to 10,000 in Four Years.” Canadian
farmers Ron and Sheila Hamilton will present two poultry farm
development workshops with the common heading The first is on how they
scaled up production from 100 to 10,000 birds in four years, the second
on how they marketed them.

The conference will have informal “tracks” of multiple workshops on the
themes of ecological health; human health and healing; food policy,
politics and economics; and diversifying farm enterprises. Highlights
include:

-Will Brinton of Woods End Research Labs will share his international
expertise on compost. He will present compost quality benchmarks for
agricultural use. In a second workshop, explain how well-made compost,
in a biologically monitored system, can achieve new levels of
productivity in intensive cropping systems.

-Sally Fallon, founding president of the Weston A. Price Foundation,
will outline 11 common factors of healthy traditional diets. She will
point out dangers in modern soy foods. In a second workshop, she will
show how to implement traditional diets in your own kitchen through
breakfast foods, snacks, soups, salads, condiments and beverages.

-Dr. Gregory Pais, with 20 years experience in natural health care, will
explain his weaving together of clinical nutrition, herbal medicine, and
homeopathy.

-Dr. Paul M. Otten, editor of Northland Berry News, is also a
professional health director.He will explore the link between soil
health and human health, explaining how depleted soils may be a root
causes of degenerative diseases and declining family farms.

-Antonia Demas, teacher, nutritionist and anthropologist, has developed
food-based curricula for 30 years for socially and ethnically diverse
groups. She will show how early education can help children reduce their
risk of diet-related, chronic diseases.

Also featured: K-8 youth program, by reservation only; scholarships for
young and beginning farmers; PASA annual meeting; and a PASA awards
banquet. Three of the conference meals will feature sustainably,
organically, and regionally raised foods.

The Sustainable Trade Show and Marketplace will fill the center’s
exhibit area with companies offering the latest agricultural hardware,
ag products and services. Farm and food advocacy organizations will
exhibit their efforts to build new markets and educate consumers. As a
convenience, vendors selling farm-fresh and ag products will be grouped
together. A “PASA Mercantile” display will offer PASA-imprinted gear and
feature signed books by major conference speakers.

For details, contact PASA, 114 West Main St., P.O. Box 419, Millheim, PA
16854-0419,

(814) 349-9856, fax (814) 349-9840, info AT pasafarming.org.Complete
details and on-line registration at www.pasafarming.orgThe conference
opens 9 a.m. Friday, Feb. 8, and closes 5:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 9.