Farming Conferences

With fall here (although it is going to reach the upper 70’s today) and winter right around the corner there are a number of small-scale farming conferences across the country. These conferences are a great place to get ideas, learn about different techniques, discuss what works with other farmers, and just plan learn how to do stuff. In fact you can find sessions at these conferences on everything from processing to marketing to transitioning you operation to a new direction. Below are a few conferences that I know about, but I would love to hear any that you know of or what you think of these if you have ever attended them.

• 2008 Small Farm Today Trade Show and Conference (Nov. 6-8): This one is right around the corner, so I suppose if you haven’t made plans to attend already it might be a bit late. I’m not able to go this year, but this seems like it would be a great place to learn because of all the great speakers and sessions they have every year. If the calendar works out next year it will be high on my list.
• 2008 Acres USA Conference and Trade Show (Dec. 4-6): Acres USA is a pretty popular publication (I’ve just read samples and online articles) and their conference is fairly popular as well. Their list of presenters is pretty cool, including a session led by Joel Salatin. They even have a pre-conference intensive class that you can take if you would like.
• 2009 Practical Farmers of Iowa Conference (Jan. 9-10): This is one that I’ll actually be attending. In fact I will even have the chance to do a short presentation there about blogging! But, my little bit is hardly the reason to go. This year the theme is “The Biological Harvest: The Sustainable Farmer’s Hidden Opportunity”. In fact they are even having the “King Corn” guys back!
• 11th Annual Midwest Value Added Agriculture Conference (Jan. 22-23): I had actually not heard of this conference until I started looking through the Practical Farmers of Iowa events calendar. It does look like a pretty neat conference though with wide variety of speakers.

If you know of any other good ones let us know…