southern sustainable agriculture working group conference

[David]

18th Annual Practical Tools and Solutions for Sustaining Family Farms Conference
January 21–24, 2009 • Chattanooga, Tennessee

http://www.ssawg.org/conference-program.html

i wondered if any of you are going? I think this is a good networking opportunity and I would like to see some of us attend

[Kat]

I explored the site and am interested in some of the courses (I could see you attending the grant writing workshop). Looks like a great conference. There is a good bit of money involved to take even one course, although there is a place to request a fee waiver, should a person qualify. Will continue to explore and feel out the degree to which it's useful for me to attend.

[Pam]

I am interested in growing my own food . The conference would be great but it is a liitle to pricey for me at this time and the deadline for fee waivers was Dec.1st. Also, the waivers were available to people who are. or plan to become,farmers. I am interested in small scale family gardening,urban homesteading etc. It would be good for networking though.

[Kat]

I agree it could be good for networking. Pam, about growing your own food, etc. I've been gathering some videos about that if you're interested (one is posted on my facebook page right now). One of the women who was featured in a video about "how much food can I grow in my backyard" started several years ago after attending a transition-type workshop. I found her very inspiring. She and her friend hold classes on various sustainability-related subjects -- igniting people's interest in self-sufficiency through the positive and then teaching them how to do various things.

Pam said:

I am interested in growing my own food . The conference would be great but it is a liitle to pricey for me at this time and the deadline for fee waivers was Dec.1st. Also, the waivers were available to people who are. or plan to become,farmers. I am interested in small scale family gardening,urban homesteading etc. It would be good for networking though.

[Lana Sutton]

I'd love if you could posts updates on our myspace group. You'd have to join myspace though. It's free. Lana

[Lana Sutton]

I posted a note on the myspace site, since some of our members are larger-scale farmers. I'd love it if you could go on the thread and explain what scale of farm this conference suits best, and if there are opportunities for individuals who just want to learn how to farm their yard better, Lana

[Kat]

David, do you know know the folks who are putting this together, or do you have any additional info? I have no idea what scale of farming their target audience is... I too would love to find out whether it applies to those wanting to farm their yards. If you don't have further info, I'll see what I can find -- thought I'd check with you first. From what I could tell based on price and topics, it seemed larger-scale than what I'm doing, but I could be wrong in my assumption.

[David]

seems to me its more for farmers than for home owners. I wont have the funds to attend now. The last week was very costly for me. I will stand around out side the event and see if i can get more information to post.

[David]

any one want to go hang outside the conference and see if we can get in tomorrow?

[Kat]

Does that mean a carpool is a possibility?

If so, what time were you thinking about going, and for how long?

[Kat]

I looked over the schedule again. Most of it is quite a ways out of my league in that it's geared to professional farmers. However, there were two classes on Friday I would have enjoyed, and three Saturday classes catch my eye (pasted below).

That said, I'm not sure when/whether I will be able to break away, especially since admission is iffy. I have a web design due by the end of the day. In revisiting the site, I realized that the event is local, so I'm not dependent on a carpool to get there. Although sharing gas is always nice, it wouldn't work for today given my unknown schedule.

If any of you all go, I hope you'll come back and let us know how it went! And if anyone out there is interested in teaching, researching, sharing even just between ourselves about any of these things (pest control, growing mushrooms, vermiculture, etc.) I'm up for it! I've been researching vermiculture and have ordered my worms. If anybody wants to know how to start an under-the-sink (non-smelly) worm compost bin I'd be happy to share as my experiment progresses...

- - -

Some Saturday classes at the event:

Mushrooms for Cultivation, Composting, and Biological Filters
Gourmet species can be grown on logs, wheat bales, wood chips, cardboard, vegetable waste, and much more. Intercropping mushrooms and vegetables in the garden or greenhouse can improve your yields and create an additional low-tech method for protein production while metabolizing gases. Fungi can also boost your compost production, and growing systems can also serve as powerful biological filters on organic farms to clean contaminated water and soil.

What’s an Organic Grower To Do About Those Pesky Pests?
Cucumber beetles, flea beetles, squash bugs, squash vine borers and leaf-footed bugs are some of the peskiest pests for organic growers. Debbie Roos will lead a discussion of what techniques growers are using that work and don’t work to control these pests (plan to join the discussion!).

On-Farm Organic Recycling: Composting, Vermiculture, and Teas
This session will cover the basics of small scale on-farm composting, vermi-composting, and using worm castings to build soil quality. Learn how you can convert organic residues into value-added products—compost, worm castings, worms, and compost tea—for increased soil quality, which leads to plant vigor and disease prevention, and as an additional source of farm income.

[David]

Ed and I did manage to get into the trade show yesterday. We picked up several contacts and some other promising info. I will add some to the web sites on the proper work group threads in case anyone wants to follow up on their own.

[Kat]

Sounds good, thanks! :) I'm interested in seeing what you found.