Tag: Guelph Organic Conference

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30 years of the Guelph Organic Conference

On the last weekend in January, the U of G hosts the Guelph Organic Conference. This has become a weekend that both Jennifer and I look forward to - attending workshops, taking to people at the trade show, and meeting up with farmer friends that we don't see nearly often enough. This year's conference is a bit different. We submitted a proposal to talk about our mini-farm, and the Conference directors thought that we were interesting enough to have us do a presentation on Saturday afternoon.We will be hosting a workshop called: Our experiment in intensive micro-farming near the city as a New Agri-Model on Saturday January 30, from 3:30-5pm in McNaughton room 113. Just in case we weren't already nervous about speaking at the conference, this week we received a phone call from the host of a U of G radio show called Cornucopia on CFRU 93.3. Their weekly radio show focuses on food issues, and they wanted to talk to a local farmer who was speaking at the conference. One of the two show hosts, Lisa, an organic agriculture student herself, interviewed me by phone. They aired my interview this past week, the archived mp3 is available here. Program information can be found here. See you at the conference!

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Guelph Organic Conference highlights

Yesterday we thought it would be good to take a day-long break. We feel completely overwhelmed with all the amazing ideas and directions possible. The Guelph Organic Conference is the best show in the country for anyone interested in organics. You can buy seeds, food, make contacts, attend workshops, and generally have a great time with like minded people. The eco-writers workshop was very informative, the Urban Ag workshop was really interesting and many interesting people were met. Hello to new friends Mark from Newfoundland and Heather from Waterloo. We look forward to connecting with both of you. Volunteering with Rare Breeds Canada was also a great experience. The response to All Sorts Acre and the Urban Agriculture Survey was amazing. We had many people and organizations interested in what All Sorts Acre was all about. We met Karin from Little City Farm, from Kitchener/Waterloo (who are real inspirations to us), Liz from The Stop Community Food Centre , and Chris from The Greener Side both in Toronto.Tim was lucky enough to get a minute with  Margaret Webb, author of Apples to Oysters and Brewster Kneen from the Ram's Horn. We also reconnected with friends we had not seen in a while. Matt and April from Boreal Edge Farm came down from Thunder Bay and Martin who is helping set up a local food pavilion for the Drayton Fall Fair. Hello and Thank you to everyone who stopped by and offered encouragement. Finally some of Jennifer's artwork was shown at both the Friday dinner and all through the show. People really enjoyed it!

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What a Conference!

We had a great time at the Guelph Organic Conference. We were thrilled at the response to All Sorts Acre by everyone. Thank you to all who took the survey, we really appreciate it! Here is the

on-line link to the survey

if you would like to take it.