Get Schooled in Food Without Picking up a Knife
This week, Pennsylvania foodies are hitting the classroom. The Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture’s 19th Annual Farming for the Future Conference began Wednesday, with workshops on everything from composting to rebuilding our local food system. We spoke to Kristin Leitzel Hoy, Conference Program Coordinator, about the event’s significance.
Can you put the conference in the context of the local food movement?
The local food movement is based around the idea of knowing your farm and knowing your food source so this is actually one of the better opportunities to do just that because you have the eaters and the producers all coming together. Some are coming to be better producers; some are coming to be better eaters. The local label only goes so far. People may also want to know, Is it grass fed? Is pasture raised the same thing? These are the type of questions you can ask the farmers themselves. This is a good opportunity for anyone who wants to have a better understanding of sustainable farming. It’s for the foodie who wants to have that chemistry knowledge without going to chef school.
Give some examples of what people are learning in the sessions.
Last year, 120 backyard gardeners got to learn about putting in raised beds. It ranges from that to teaching someone with an orchard how to bring pigs in to help keep the orchard clean and put them to work and diversify the farm so you don’t only have apples, you have pork as well.
Has the demographic of your typical conference attendee changed at all?
People who may have, five years ago, considered themselves a consumer only are now saying, I’m also a gardener or I also have a small farm.
Your keynote speaker, Lisa Hamilton, was recently on WPSU questioning the idolization of Michael Pollan and other food writers. Her point was that the people with the real answers about how we can improve and protect our food supply are farmers. Why did you choose her?
Her book, Deeply Rooted, does something that I think no other book has done: spanned a variety of farmers, many whom do not consider themselves lefties or even part of a food movement, but who are doing something different. Inadvertently she has captured the spirit of a PASA member. This isn’t someone who wants to be defined by political party or their beliefs in politics in general, but by doing what they think is right. And what is right ends up being, as far as the farming industry is concerned, sustaining something that is at risk. She found a lot of different people with different perspectives that really do cover who ends up at this conference. She’ll have a message that hits home for everyone, which is an almost impossible task. I hope she’s controversial—that’s what we like.
Sustainable farming goes hand in hand with environmental stewardship. How are you minimizing the environmental impact of your conference?
To give just a few examples, we’re purchasing carbon credits to, as best we can, offset our attendees’ transportation and the consumption of electricity and water. We’re also encouraging attendees to carpool or, if they’re staying at a hotel, share a room or refrain from getting their sheets changed every day. It’s just the small things that add up when you have 2000 people coming together.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 at 9:03 pm and is filed under 5 questions, Food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
