Re: 2014 SAWG Conference: How to make a living as a farmer
Posted: Sun Feb 09, 2014 2:38 am
This weekend I attended the 23rd annual Pennsylvania Association Sustainable Agriculture Conference at Penn State. This years motto was Letting Nature Lead. There were people there from about 1/2 the States in the USA. about 2000 people I was told. It sounds very similar to the conference you attended George. I attended 3 break out sessions each day as well a hearing a main Speaker for each day. I would rate the conference as excellent. Many great vendors, many interesting topics, I was torn for several of the time slots which one to attend. Some of the sessions were geared toward the Small Organic Farmer, some were more for the Back yard Hobbyist like me. Friday I attended a Straw Bale construction talk which included how to build cobb ovens. Power point show was great but the hands on experience was terrific. The fellow and his family had gone to Jamaica for a month to help them build cobb ovens. Electric is very expensive for the local people and they had no bake oven for many many years. It was heart warming to hear about their experience and what was accomplished there. The village was ably to bake bread for the 1st time in a long time. I got to talk to the fellow today for a bit of one on one. His farm is in Brookville which isn't that far from my cabin. He was very interesting and very encouraging. 2nd was a Natural Beekeeping talk. Its a kinder gentler way to keep Bees. They were not worried about what was easy for the Beekeeper, they were not worried about getting more honey, they were worried about what was best for the Bees, the rest will take care of itself. The last session for Friday was Creating Habitat for Pollinators and Beneficial Insects . A professor from Penn State, an Assistant Professor and several Graduate students gave the presentation. There was this fellow born in the 1850 and died in 1930's who must have been very wealthy, because he spent 30 years just going out into a meadow and sitting there looking at flowers and writing down what insects visited what flower. Turns out that many [ 81 % of beneficial insects ] beneficials were very loyal to only one, two or three flowers. The fact that many would only visit one plant blew me away. If your property does not have that flower, you don't have that beneficial insect. WOW, that's a useful piece of information right there. I am getting a little tired, I will type more about the conference later. It was well worth the money.