May 25, 2021

Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association schedules events

The Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association (OEFFA) invites you to spread your wings this summer with videos, farm tours, and workshops that will help you learn, grow, and connect.

The 2021 OEFFA Sustainable Farm Tour and Workshop Series features four farm tours highlighting Ohio’s growing community of sustainable farmers and two online workshop series designed to help early career farmers build legal resilience and established farmers transfer their land to the next generation. The series also features 10 free on-demand video presentations from OEFFA’s 2021 online conference including practical production trainings, inspiring visions of a prosperous small farm future, honest reflections on 2020, and an insightful investigation of faith, food, and race.

“This series allows farmers and gardeners to share production know-how with each other and helps build connections among farmers and eaters, strengthening our local food system,” said Renee Hunt, OEFFA Program Director. “New this year, it will also provide a taste of the OEFFA conference as we’ve curated a bite-sized collection of recorded videos from a diverse set of workshops and sessions normally only available to registered conference attendees.”

Events include:

· Tuesday, June 29: Our Time is Now: Conversations about 2020 and the Road Ahead (four-part panel series), Opportunity in Crisis: Building Power for a Sustainable and Just Food System in Ohio, Conference Bites (pre-recorded)

· Tuesday, July 20: Foraging: It’s Not Just for the Wilderness, Pivoting from Tillage to No-Till Practices in Vegetable Production, Regenerating Land with Livestock, Intensifying Cover Crops in Organic Grain Systems through Interseeding, Conference Bites (pre-recorded)

· Wednesday, August 4: Organic Dairy Pasture Walk, Farm Tour—Settlage & Settlage Dairy (Auglaize County)

· Tuesday, August 10: A Conversation about Faith, Food, and Race, Conference Bites (pre-recorded and live facilitated discussion)

· Saturday, September 11: Flowers, Berries, and Hemp Farm Tour, Farm Tour—Creek’s Edge Farm Retreat (Brown County)

· Sunday, September 26: Diversified Permaculture Farm Tour, Farm Tour—Purplebrown Farmstead (Summit County)

· Sunday October 17: Season Extension Community Supported Agriculture Farm Tour, Farm Tour—Boulder Belt Eco-Farm (Preble County)

· Thursdays October 14, November 4, December 2: Planning to Transfer the Farm Workshop Series, Online Workshop

· Tuesdays, October 19-November 16: Cultivating Your Legally Resilient Farm Workshop Series, Online Workshop

“OEFFA has offered annual farm tours and conferences for more than four decades; farmers sharing knowledge with other farmers has always been at the core of our work. Whether on-farm or online, this series provides unique opportunities for local growers and eaters to learn about sustainable agriculture and nurture their connection to the ecological farming community,” Hunt said.

Learn more about all events in this series at www.oeffa.org/farmtours. For the safety of guests, all farm tours require pre-registration, attendance will be limited, and CDC COVID-19 guidance for outdoor gatherings will be followed. Farm tour registration is now open. Online workshop registration will open in August. Conference video recordings will be available on OEFFA’s YouTube channel in three bites beginning on June 29, July 20, and August 10 and can be viewed for free anytime.

Formed in 1979, the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association (OEFFA) cultivates a future in which sustainable and organic farmers thrive, local food nourishes our communities, and agricultural practices protect and enhance our environment.

For more information, go to www.oeffa.org.