Intensive Sessions: Half Day Workshops
Morning
Pastured Poultry: Affordable Ways to Get Started
Friday 9 AM-12:30 PM
Well, folks, you asked for it, and here it is: an intensive session on pastured poultry. Jill and Ken Gies, Neppa Hatchery, will take you through raising pastured poultry. From construction of a low-cost brooder to feed rations to simple processing equipment, this workshop will cover it all. Participants will get a first-hand look at some affordable equipment, enjoy a brooder-building demonstration, and participate in a round-table discussion of what works well for them.
Processing Rules & Regulations: One-Stop Shopping
Friday 9 AM-12:30 PM
With minimal start-up money, one can turn his or her kitchen into a lucrative business. This workshop is an overview of the necessary steps to becoming a legal home-based food processor covering: regulations, product development, pricing, labeling, finding customers, marketing, and bookkeeping. Anyone interested in starting their own home-based processing venture should plan on joining Mimi Shotland Fix, Baking Fix and author of Home Baking for Profit , for this session.
Root Cellars: Cool Storage for Your Farm, Homestead, or House
Friday 9:30 AM-12:30 PM
Outgrowing your fridge? Well then it’s time to upgrade. Bill MacKentley, St. Lawrence Nurseries, and Jim Juczak will discuss several versatile and affordable options for storing your produce and plants in root cellars. With a little knowledge of the basic principles of heat exchange and displacement, you’ll be well-prepared to return home and build one yourself!
Links and Chains: Strengthening Urban-Rural Linkages to Improve Food Access
Friday 9:30 AM-12:30 PM
This workshop will explore new ways of connecting low-income/food desert communities with rural farmers. Dennis Derryck and Sabrina Wilensky, Corbin Hill Road Farm (CHRF), will use CHRF’s Farm Share program as a model to discuss redefining the nature of the problems presented by food deserts, examining the assumptions that underlie current approaches to serving low income communities, organizing communities and building partnerships, building infrastructure, and lessons that Corbin Hill Road Farm has learned in its first two seasons of operation.
Demystifying a Season's Worth of Grazing
Friday 9:30 AM-12:30 PM
Troy Bishopp, The Grass Whisperer, will lead attendees in setting up a practical grazing plan chart (free to participants) using his 25 years of grazing management experience and farm as a template. Expect to explore the hot topics of tall grazing, land fallowing, percent trampling, stockpiling, winter and riparian area grazing. Learn the results from Cornell Labs while seeing before and after pictures on how these management tools affect the soil, animal production, plant diversity and farmers’ quality of life.
Certification Orientation
Friday 9:30 AM-12:30PM
Join staff members from NOFA-NY Certified Organic, LLC for an introduction to the certifcation standards and process. If you are thinking of certifying your farm or business, this free workshop is for you. Certification procedures and paperwork will be reviewed, and participants will have plenty of chances to ask questions specific to their farms or businesses.
Afternoon
Creating a Fair Food System: Solidarity Between Farmers and Farmworkers
Friday 1:30 PM-5:00 PM
Farmers in NYS are heavily reliant on migrant workers, both documented and undocumented. This workshop will focus on labor on farms in New York State and efforts to create better conditions for farmers and workers through domestic fair trade, new opportunities for recent immigrants, and immigration policy reform. Abby Youngblood, Just Food, Michelle Hughes, New Farmer Development Project, and Elizabeth Henderson, will explore who these workers are, where they come from, and the challenges faced by both farmers and workers. Panelists will describe the New Farmer Development Project which supports immigrants in establishing their own farm businesses and the work of the Agricultural Justice Project (AJP) to create a new label, Food Justice Certified, with the goal of changing relationships in the food system.
ABCs of Preserving at Home: A Hands-On Look at Freezing, Drying, Canning, and Fermentation
Friday 1:30 PM-5:00 PM
Get ready for some hands-on experience surrounded by the knowledge and camaraderie of veteran preservers, peppered with Powerpoint and hand-outs.. Sharon Nagle and Petra Page-Mann, Firefly Farm, will lead an informative, fun and inspiring workshop on various methods of preservation. Freezing, drying, canning and fermentation will be extensively discussed, from nutrient and energy efficiency to tools and techniques. Don’t miss this delicious (and nutritious) hands-on training!
Cost of Production - Answering Farming's Tough Questions
Friday 1:30 PM-5:00 PM
If having your wisdom teeth pulled seems less painful than crunching numbers, then this workshop is for you. Knowing your cost of production can help you determine what to charge for your products, which products are actually profitable, and whether or not you can afford additional investments. Robert Hadad, Cornell Vegetable Team, will help you develop crop budgets, identify what aspects of your farm business are efficient, and discover the true cost of your production. Cl. Don’t forget to bring the following things to the workshop, because you’ll need each one:
1. Richard Wiswall's The Organic Farmer's Business Handbook. If you need a copy, one can be purchased at discount through the NOFA-NY store.
2. A laptop with Microsoft Excel (1997-2003 version or later). Laptops are available to borrow if you do not have one. Contact Robert as early as possible to reserve one: rgh26@cornell.edu.
3. As many records of the costs for your operation as you can find (this activity will be a lesson in good record keeping).
Compost Unraveled: Tips for Producing and Using Quality Compost
Friday 1:30 PM-5:00 PM
Whether you are new to composting on your farm or have years of experience, Jean Bonohotal, Cornell Waste Management Institute, Maureen Knapp, Cobblestone Valley Farm, and Melissa Young, Environmental Finance Center, will help you hone your farm composting skills. Just because it is dark and looks good does not mean it is good quality compost. Feedstock, process, management and storage all affect compost quality. We will explore access to good composts and good management in making your own quality product.
The Art of Host Farming: Offering a Quality and Educational Farm
Apprenticeship
Friday 1:30 PM-5:00 PM
Passing along your farming skills to inquisitive aspiring and new farm workers is an age-old tradition for growing the next generation of farmers. Learn about ways to find, contract, compensate and above all teach apprentices on your farm. Join Dulli Tengeler and Adam Prizio, Birdsfoot Farm, to learn about the laws surrounding this practice in the modern era, engage in activities to understand effective teaching, share experiences and improve your skills as a teacher and mentor.
Small Scale Meat Processing & Marketing
Friday 1:30 PM-5:00 PM
When it comes to organic livestock production, processing is often cited as the bottleneck that prevents producers from entering the market. What options are out there for smaller-scale farmers? Adele and Jim Hayes, Sap Bush Hollow Farm, have run a diversified operation since 1979 that includes intensive rotational grazing of 70 ewes, 180 pasture dropped lamb, 15 feeder steers, 20-25 hogs, 50 layers, an order-based pastured poultry operation, and 85 turkeys. Adele and Jim will discuss some of the steps that they have taken to help them address the processing bottleneck, including building a 20-C processing facility and later incorporating a 5-A poultry processing facility.
On-Farm Research Roundtable and Discussion
Friday 1:30 PM-5:00 PM
Join an all-star group of academic and farmer researchers for a discussion of how on-farm research has worked on their farms. The first half will feature Klaas Martens, Linda and Takeshi Akaogi, Conrad Vispo, Fred Forsburg, and Carol Delaney. The second half will be led by Brian Caldwell and Laurie Drinkwater. Following the roundtable, we’ll turn our attentions to the types of questions that are best answered by on-farm research and how to increase our capacity to do it.
