Thursday, January 21, 2010
Session B: 10:30 am - 12:00 noon
Advanced Organic Soil Fertility Topics: Micronutrients (Double Session, Part 2)
Basic Pest Management Using Cultural and Biological Methods
Control Básico de Plagas Usando Métodos Culturales y Biológicos
Edible Landscaping—The New American Garden
GMOs: Failure to Yield, Failure to Deliver
Acciones Prácticas de Seguridad Alimenticia para Pequeños Agricultores
Practical Food Safety Actions for Small-Scale Farmers
The Salinas Valley Environment and Children’s Health
What’s Next for Community Supported Agriculture? (Double Session, Part 2)
Where’s the (Local) beef? Overcoming Barriers to Local Meat Processing
Advanced Organic Soil Fertility Topics: The Wise Use of Micronutrients in Organic Farming (Double Session, Part 2)
Micronutrients are the tiny keys to nutrient quality and increased production, no matter the crop you are striving to produce. Compost is a wonderful material and is often considered the answer to any need for micronutrients. In the quest to grow nutrient-dense crops however, the presence of micronutrients cannot be assumed. Without them, the foods being grown will lack true nutritional value and quality. Why are these trace elements so important and what do they do for the nutrition of the soil, the plants, and the value of the food or feed we produce? Though only necessary in small amounts, micronutrients are the “spark plugs” plants need for top performance. Organic production of superb quality and high yields will only be achieved when these required nutrients are supplied in sufficient amounts.
Presenter: Neal Kinsey, Kinsey Agricultural Service, Charleston, MO.
Neal Kinsey is a world-renowned soil and fertility consultant, and the author of Hands-On Agronomy. He owns a soil analytical laboratory specializing in balancing soils using Albrecht methods.
Go to Part 1 “The Law of the Minimum and the Law of the Maximum”
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Basic Pest Management Using Cultural and Biological Methods
This workshop will explore the principles of organic pest management with a focus on farming practices that prevent and reduce pest outbreaks. Cultural controls including mechanical operations, crop rotation, trap crops, diversification, and timing of planting, irrigation and harvest are fundamental to organic pest management. We’ll also look at the beneficial insects that can prevent many other insect species from ever reaching the status of “pest.” Topics include how to enhance habitat for predators and when it is worth considering a release of parasitoids. A noted retired horticulture professor and a pest control advisor will lead this workshop, so bring your specific questions to discuss.
Presenters: Martin Guerena, IPM Specialist, City of Davis, CA; TBA; Richard Merrill, Cabrillo College (emeritus); Scotts Valley, CA.
Control Básico de Plagas Usando Métodos Culturales y Biológicos
Este taller explorará los principios del control orgánico de plagas con enfoque en las prácticas agrícolas que previenen y reducen los aumentos de plagas. Controles culturales que incluyen operaciones mecánicas, rotaciones de cultivo, calendario para plantar, irrigación y cosecha, cultivos de trampa y diversificación, son temas que son fundamentales para el control orgánico de plagas. También se estudiará la importancia de mantener poblaciones de enemigos naturales, por ejemplo, los benefíciales, los cuales pueden prevenir que muchas especies de insectos alcancen el estado de “plaga”. ¿Cómo aumentar los predadores y cuándo vale la pena considerar liberar de parasitoides? Un sobresaliente horticultor retirado y un asesor de control de plagas liderarán este taller, así que traiga sus preguntas específicas para discutir para el beneficio de todos. Presentadores: Martin Guerena, Asesor en Control de Plagas y especialista en Manejo Integrado de Control de Plagas, Ciudad de Davis, CA; Richard Merrill, Cabrillo College (emeritus), Scotts Valley, CA; y otro presentador por
ser anunciado. (Este taller se presentará en inglés con interpretación al español).
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Edible Landscaping—The New American Garden
One of today’s gardening buzzwords is sustainable. What could be a more sustainable landscape style than an organically grown edible garden? Rosalind Creasy, pioneer in the field of edible landscaping, award-winning professional photographer, and author of the Complete Book of Edible Landscaping, will give a mouth-watering slide presentation in this session. Among the topics she will cover are an A-to-Z of her recommended beautiful edible plants for West Coast gardens, an overview of the wide variety of edible landscapes, and the principles of landscape design particular to edibles.
Presenter: Rosalind Creasy, author, Los Altos Hills, CA.
GMOs: Failure to Yield, Failure to Deliver
Industry promises of how genetically modified organisms (GMOs) will solve world hunger, save the planet from global warming, and cure the most insidious diseases have abounded since the first GM crop hit the market in 1996. Despite this hype, organic farming and food activists have kept the biotech industry at bay and only four major GM crops have been commercialized. Increasingly empty promises and relentless international promotion, however, continue to cause concern. Speakers will discuss the latest legal victory, where a federal judge overturned approval of Monsanto’s Roundup Ready sugar beets and ordered USDA to study the environmental and economic impacts. Learn how GM crops have failed to significantly increase yields and how agro-ecological farming offers the greatest opportunities for feeding the world and sustaining food production for future generations. Find out about actions organic producers are taking to stop the spread of GMO seed contamination and to protect the integrity of organic crops. Become involved & connected to these efforts!
Presenters: Zelig Golden, Center for Food Safety, San Francisco, CA; Doug Gurian-Sherman, Union of Concerned Scientists, Washington DC; Megan (Thompson) Westgate, Non-GMO Project, Upland, CA.
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Acciones Prácticas de Seguridad Alimenticia para Pequeños Agricultores
Con las variadas demandas de la seguridad alimenticia, órdenes de mercadeo de la industria y las nuevas leyes federales potenciales, ¿Cuál es la estrategia práctica de seguridad alimenticia para pequeños agricultores? Muchos agricultores de pequeña-escala y de recursos limitados que no hablan inglés, no han sido invitados a las discusiones de la industria sobre estos asuntos. Sin embargo, hay personas que están desarrollando un camino a la seguridad alimenticia para los agricultores pequeños. ¿Qué necesitan saber los agricultores? ¿Qué requieren los «mercados locales» para la seguridad alimenticia? ¿Existe un término medio para las prioridades de seguridad alimenticia? Este taller se enfocará, en primer lugar, en las prácticas de la seguridad alimenticia en el terreno en vista de los cambios de política actuales y las condiciones de mercado.
Presentadores: Michael O’Gorman, Just Farms Consulting, Ensenada, México; Dave Runsten, Director de Políticas, Community Alliance with Family Farmers (Alianza Comunitaria con Agricultores Familiares), Davis, CA; Tony Serrano, Gerente General, ALBA Organics, Salinas, CA. (En español con interpretación limitada al inglés.)
Practical Food Safety for Small-Scale Farmers
As small-scale farmers respond to varying demands for food safety, industry marketing orders, and potential new federal laws, what is a practical food-safety strategy? Many small-scale, limited-resource and non-English-speaking farmers have not been invited to industry discussions on these matters. However, people are developing a food safety path for small farmers. What do farmers need to know? What do “local markets” demand for food safety? Is there a middle ground for food-safety priorities? This workshop will focus primarily on food-safety practices in the field, in light of current policy changes and market conditions.
Presenters: Michael O’Gorman, Just Farms Consulting, Ensenada, Mexico; Dave Runsten, Community Alliance with Family Farmers, Davis, CA; Tony Serrano, ALBA Organics, Salinas, CA.
(In Spanish with limited English interpretation.)
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The Salinas Valley Environment and Children’s Health
The Center for the Health Assessment of Mothers and Children of Salinas (CHAMACOS) is a community/university partnership that is conducting one of the largest studies in the world on environmental exposures and the health of children in an agricultural community. CHAMACOS began in 1999 with the participation of 600 pregnant women and continues today with their children who are now 9 years old. The study has found, among other results, relationships between prenatal pesticide exposure and poor neurodevelopment in the children. Asa Bradman, who helped found the CHAMACOS partnership, will present an overview of the study’s findings, with a discussion to follow.
Presenter: Asa Bradman, UC, Berkeley.
Double Session, Part 2
What’s Next for Community Supported Agriculture? (Double Session, Part 2)
There are all kinds of twists and variations on the CSA theme. In this session we will talk about what pays off and how to re-tool a CSA in ways that will make it accessible and appealing to a much wider group of people—the mainstream—while also working well for farmers. Specifically, there is great potential in farmers collaborating on CSAs and offering more customization options for shareholders. LocalHarvest.org is working with farmers to develop a set of online CSA management tools that offer shareholders more choices without creating administrative headaches for the farmer. We’ll talk about these new tools and others.
Presenters: Guillermo Payet, LocalHarvest.org, Santa Cruz, CA; Benzi Ronen, Farmigo, Inc., San Rafael, CA.
Go to Part 1 “CSAs and the Healing Force of Money”
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Where’s the (Local) beef? Overcoming Barriers to Local Meat Processing
Local meat is all the rage, but demand far outstrips supply. Where did all the local slaughterhouses go? In an era of mega-processors, how do smaller-scale, organic or grassfed producers get their product processed? And how do producers successfully market these new products? This panel will kick off with a discussion of how federal policies have ground down small-scale slaughterhouses across the country and how policy tools can build them back up again. Next, a consultant to the Niche Meat Processor Assistance Network, who led the effort to build a USDA-inspected mobile processing unit on California’s Central Coast, will present lessons learned from that project. Finally, a successful grassfed beef producer will discuss his own quest to find a suitable processing operation and market his product to a broader consumer base. Find answers to your meatiest questions here.
Presenters: Noelle Ferdon, Food & Water Watch, Chico, CA; Debra Garrison, Community Food and Farm Concepts, Arroyo Grande, CA; Joe Morris, Morris Grassfed Beef, San Juan Bautista, CA.
A Garden in Every School?
Can this really be done? What does it take? School garden professionals have been working on regional models that support a multitude of garden programs. Successful school garden programs are often led by one or two garden champions, but these programs can be short-lived, with lush gardens turning into weedy boxes. Regional support models create garden champions, build community, and lay the foundation for long-term sustainability. During this workshop we will share the best resources for curriculum use and dissemination, effective networking and communication, and garden creation and maintenance. We will summarize the findings from the September 2009 School Garden Sustainability Summit, share case studies from other regionally based school garden programs, and identify costs and funding sources for sustaining these efforts.
Presenters: Courtney Cadwell, Los Altos School District, Los Altos, CA; Arden Bucklin-Sporer, Green School Yard Alliance, San Francisco, CA; John Fisher, Life Lab Science Program, Santa Cruz, CA.
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