Promoting a sustainable community food system in Richmond, VA

Virginia BIological Farming Conference

Event Details

Time: February 19, 2010 at 9am to February 20, 2010 at 3pm
Location: Institute Conference Center
Street: 150 Slayton Avenue
City/Town: Danville, Virginia 24540
Website or Map: http://www.ialr.org/contacts-…
Phone: 434-766-6777
Event Type: sustainable, agriculture, conference
Organized By: VBF Conference Committee, inc. people from VCE, VSU, VaTech, RMA.& FSA
Latest Activity: Jan 22

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Event Description

February 19 - 20, 2010 All Details are available at http://vabf.org/
Many Virginia farmers have experienced economic hardships in recent years. Costs of production are rising, especially for fuel and fertilizers. For this Conference, we went all the way to South Africa to find a farmer who can really address the issues of energy use and soil fertility in agriculture. Ian Mitchell-Innes is an expert in Holistic Resource Management. He monitors the energy flow and nutrient cycling through the eco-system of his farm. He makes management decisions that control energy, water and nutrients.

The other plenary speaker for the 2010 Virginia Biological Farming Conference is Michael Ableman. Michael champions the cause of sustainable agriculture through books, films, television and many public presentations. During the last 50 years we have lost over 5 million acres of arable farmland to real estate development in Virginia. If this trend continues, there will not be much farmland or forested land in this state. Can you imagine the entire state of Virginia as one connected urban and suburban sprawl? Michael Ableman will suggest that islands of land preserved for farming and forestry could exist within this future landscape.

Other Conference speakers will discuss permaculture, composting, seed saving, pastured poultry, raspberries, heirloom vegetables, beekeeping, biological controls of insects and diseases, tomatoes and mushrooms. We will have two presentations on food safety. We will have three of the best representatives in Virginia on hand to talk about state and federal government programs that support agriculture. We have two personnel from Berea College in Kentucky who can describe how small liberal arts colleges might become engaged in agriculture. We will have two excellent film presentations and one tour of an incredible composting operation.

As always we will have a lively youth program, an awesome trade show and plenty of opportunities for networking with ecological farmers from Virginia and other states.