NOFA-NY 2010 Conference Keynote Addresses

CIRCLES OF CARING
Organic Farming & Gardening Conference

Keynote Guest Speakers

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Sandra Steingraber

Friday 8 pm

The Exquisite Communion: Land Use and Children's Health

Dr. Steingraber will explore the public health connections between systems of agriculture and pediatric health. Of particular interest will be the links between food availability and the epidemic of childhood obesity, the influence of pesticide exposure on childhood cancers, and the role of synthetic fertilizers in fueling the rural drug trade. Woven throughout this description of scientific evidence will be the story of the 100-year evolution of Steingraber's own family farm in central Illinois--from sustainable, diverse, and chemical-free in the Great Depression through its industrialization as a chemically intense producer of corn and soybeans after World War II and ending with its recent transformation back to an diverse supplier of regional, organic food.

The stories and the science are drawn from Steingraber's forthcoming book, Living Downstream, 2nd edition, and film based on it, both to be released in April 2010.

Ecologist, author, and cancer survivor, Sandra Steingraber, Ph.D. is an internationally recognized expert on the environmental links to cancer and human health. Steingraber's highly acclaimed book, Living Downstream: An Ecologist Looks at Cancer and the Environment presents cancer as a human rights issue. It was the first to bring together data on toxic releases with newly released data from U.S. cancer registries. Formerly on faculty at Cornell University, Sandra Steingraber is currently Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Ithaca College in Ithaca, New York. She is married to sculptor Jeff de Castro. They are proud parents of five-year-old Faith and two-year-old Elijah.

Saturday 11 am

Shannon Hayes

Real Cows in a Parallel Universe

Drawing from true stories and her pragmatic agrarian sensibilities (and wit), Hayes will examine the nature of life, death and stewardship in family farming and sustainable living, and how the fundamental lessons of caring, compassion and abundance will transform our national culture.

Shannon Hayes is the host of grassfedcooking.com, and the author of The Grassfed Gourmet and The Farmer and the Grill. With luck, the advance copies of her newest book, Radical Homemakers: Reclaiming Domesticity from a Consumer Culture, will be released at this years' conference. Hayes works with three generations of her family raising grassfed and pastured meats on Sap Bush Hollow Farm in Schoharie Co., New York. She has written for numerous national publications, including The New York Times. Her fourth book, Long Way on a Little: An Earth Lovers' Handbook for Enjoying Meat, Pinching Pennies and Living Deliciously is due out in September of 2011.

Shannon Hayes

Elizabeth Henderson

Sunday 11 am

Chaos or Community? From the Current Food and Climate Crisis to a Food System that is Locally Empowered, Organic and Fair

Elizabeth Henderson takes the title of her speech from Martin Luther King, Jr's 1967 book where he lays out the choice for humanity between nonviolent coexistence and violent coannihilation. We face a choice as critical today: will human beings continue on our current path towards global climate change with the hideous consequences of famine, disease and conflict, or will we rebuild our societies using all that we have learned in organic and sustainable agriculture, and cooperative, solidarity economies? In this talk, Henderson will summarize the dangers we face but concentrate on solutions from her experience of 30 years as a farmer and active participant in the organic movement. During its 21 years, the Genesee Valley Organic CSA has demonstrated that non-farmers are willing to share the risk with the people who grow their food and to contribute financially to protecting their farmland. With the Agricultural Justice Project, NOFA is taking a lead in creating domestic fair trade, food production based on a decent quality of life for everyone involved. When we choose community and work together in a caring way, the unpredictable becomes possible.

Elizabeth Henderson farms at Peacework Organic Farm in Wayne County, New York, and has been producing organically grown vegetables for the fresh market for over 28 years. She is a founding member of the Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA) in Massachusetts, has been on the Board of Directors of NOFA-NY since 1989, and represents NOFA in the national discussions of organic standards. She chairs the Agricultural and Farmland Protection Board in Wayne County, and is a member of the steering committee of the Agricultural Justice Project and helped organize the Domestic Fair Trade Association. In 2001, the organic industry honored her with one of the first "Spirit of Organic" awards. Her writings on organic agriculture appear in countless publications. Henderson is one of the authors of The Real Dirt: Farmers Tell about Organic and Low-Input Practices in the Northeast and lead author of Sharing the Harvest: A Citizen's Guide to Community Supported Agriculture (Chelsea Green, 1999, with a new edition in 2007).

	CIRCLES OF CARING Organic Farming & Gardening Conference

Keynote Guest Speakers
.
Sandra Steingraber		Friday 8 pm
	The Exquisite Communion: Land Use and Children's Health Dr. Steingraber will explore the public health connections between systems of agriculture and pediatric health. Of particular interest will be the links between food availability and the epidemic of childhood obesity, the influence of pesticide exposure on childhood cancers, and the role of synthetic fertilizers in fueling the rural drug trade. Woven throughout this description of scientific evidence will be the story of the 100-year evolution of Steingraber's own family farm in central Illinois--from sustainable, diverse, and chemical-free in the Great Depression through its industrialization as a chemically intense producer of corn and soybeans after World War II and ending with its recent transformation back to an diverse supplier of regional, organic food. The stories and the science are drawn from Steingraber's forthcoming book, Living Downstream, 2nd edition, and film based on it, both to be released in April 2010.
Ecologist, author, and cancer survivor, Sandra Steingraber, Ph.D. is an internationally recognized expert on the environmental links to cancer and human health. Steingraber's highly acclaimed book, Living Downstream: An Ecologist Looks at Cancer and the Environment presents cancer as a human rights issue. It was the first to bring together data on toxic releases with newly released data from U.S. cancer registries. Formerly on faculty at Cornell University, Sandra Steingraber is currently Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Ithaca College in Ithaca, New York. She is married to sculptor Jeff de Castro. They are proud parents of five-year-old Faith and two-year-old Elijah.
Saturday 11 am		Shannon Hayes
Real Cows in a Parallel Universe Drawing from true stories and her pragmatic agrarian sensibilities (and wit), Hayes will examine the nature of life, death and stewardship in family farming and sustainable living, and how the fundamental lessons of caring, compassion and abundance will transform our national culture. Shannon Hayes is the host of grassfedcooking.com, and the author of The Grassfed Gourmet and The Farmer and the Grill. With luck, the advance copies of her newest book, Radical Homemakers: Reclaiming Domesticity from a Consumer Culture, will be released at this years' conference. Hayes works with three generations of her family raising grassfed and pastured meats on Sap Bush Hollow Farm in Schoharie Co., New York. She has written for numerous national publications, including The New York Times. Her fourth book, Long Way on a Little: An Earth Lovers' Handbook for Enjoying Meat, Pinching Pennies and Living Deliciously is due out in September of 2011.

Elizabeth Henderson		Sunday 11 am
	Chaos or Community? From the Current Food and Climate Crisis to a Food System that is Locally Empowered, Organic and Fair Elizabeth Henderson takes the title of her speech from Martin Luther King, Jr's 1967 book where he lays out the choice for humanity between nonviolent coexistence and violent coannihilation. We face a choice as critical today: will human beings continue on our current path towards global climate change with the hideous consequences of famine, disease and conflict, or will we rebuild our societies using all that we have learned in organic and sustainable agriculture, and cooperative, solidarity economies? In this talk, Henderson will summarize the dangers we face but concentrate on solutions from her experience of 30 years as a farmer and active participant in the organic movement. During its 21 years, the Genesee Valley Organic CSA has demonstrated that non-farmers are willing to share the risk with the people who grow their food and to contribute financially to protecting their farmland. With the Agricultural Justice Project, NOFA is taking a lead in creating domestic fair trade, food production based on a decent quality of life for everyone involved. When we choose community and work together in a caring way, the unpredictable becomes possible.
Elizabeth Henderson farms at Peacework Organic Farm in Wayne County, New York, and has been producing organically grown vegetables for the fresh market for over 28 years. She is a founding member of the Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA) in Massachusetts, has been on the Board of Directors of NOFA-NY since 1989, and represents NOFA in the national discussions of organic standards. She chairs the Agricultural and Farmland Protection Board in Wayne County, and is a member of the steering committee of the Agricultural Justice Project and helped organize the Domestic Fair Trade Association. In 2001, the organic industry honored her with one of the first "Spirit of Organic" awards. Her writings on organic agriculture appear in countless publications. Henderson is one of the authors of The Real Dirt: Farmers Tell about Organic and Low-Input Practices in the Northeast and lead author of Sharing the Harvest: A Citizen's Guide to Community Supported Agriculture (Chelsea Green, 1999, with a new edition in 2007).