26 January 2009
Organic Farming Association (NOFA) held it's annual statewide conference over the weekend of January 23rd-25th at the Riverside Convention Center in Rochester, NY. A wide variety of over 1,000 attendees representing growers, educators, concerned citizens, and organizations were on hand from all over New York state and beyond.
Friday began with a day-long session on Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) that featured author Elizabeth Henderson from GVOCSA, who co-wrote the fabulous CSA resource book "Sharing the Harvest" with Robyn Van En . The valuable part of a workshop like this one is the multiple first-hand experiences and viewpoints that one can discover in a room full of participants.
Something you could never get single handedly from a book, though a recommended book it is, especially for CSA beginners. Topics covered included: Starting a CSA, Setting the Share Price and Share Size, Including Low-Income Members in Your CSA, and Creating a Core Group. [Featured in the photo from l. to r. are Paula Lukats from Just Food, Melissa Carlson from the GVOCSA Core Group, and Elizabeth Henderson.]
An intriguing cap to Saturday's program was research trying to answer the question "How many people could New York state feed locally?" by Dr. Christian Peters of Cornell University. Some of the interesting data to come out of this study include the fact that New York farmland could only feed 4.1 million people out of the current 19.4 million population in the state (based on 2000 census figures). Low-fat meat based diets require 3 times the land base that low-fat plant based diets require. And, Syracuse could get 100% of its food needs from local sources within 44 km based on a daily diet containing 6 oz. meat and 40% fat.
You can support NOFA by joining at www.nofa.org
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