By Haley Baron, OFRF Partnership & Growth Supervisor
Because the OFRF workforce walked into the massive convention room full of individuals on the 2021 Natural Grower Summit (OGS) in Monterey, CA final week, it was onerous to imagine we have been truly there… in individual! OGS is a gathering of natural farmers and trade professionals to share concepts and new strategies, and join with our natural neighborhood. After canceling OGS 2020 and almost two years since our final in-person occasion, we have been excited (and a little bit nervous!) to lastly be there. However, as our two-hour workshop, “Constructing Resilience by Natural Farming Programs” started, we rapidly remembered the magic of being in dialog with growers in regards to the rules and practices of natural farming methods which can be vital to farmer resilience.
For our workshop we introduced collectively three extraordinarily educated consultants to debate the ways in which local weather change will have an effect on rising situations in California in addition to the practices and analysis that may assist growers adapt and develop into extra resilient. The group of about 100 attendees have been desperate to be taught, community, and ask questions.
The morning started with Joji Muramoto, the primary and solely Cooperative Extension Specialist totally centered on natural manufacturing in California and UCSC professor, who shared in regards to the methods local weather change will affect arthropod pests and plant illnesses. Tom Willey, natural farming pioneer, spoke in regards to the no-till natural trials he has been a part of lately. The viewers was keen to listen to from Tom as he has been farming organically for 4 many years in Madera, CA. And lastly, we had Eric Brennan, USDA’s Agricultural Analysis Service (ARS) solely organic-focused Analysis Horticulturist in your entire nation, who joined us just about with a perfectly-produced and research-filled video about local weather change and soil well being resilience methods, comparable to cowl cropping. His YouTube channel incorporates a revised model of his video presentation, “Cowl Cropping Technique is for Local weather-Sensible Farmers and Local weather-Resilient Farms.”
We concluded our workshop with casual dialogue teams in regards to the challenges, wants and alternatives that growers have in a wide range of subject areas comparable to soil well being administration, pest, illness, and weeds.
All through the convention, our workforce had the pleasure of seeing outdated associates and companions nose to nose, and assembly many new ones. Due to the Natural Produce Community workforce for producing OGS and together with us!
