2021 South Dakota Local Foods Conference

South Dakota Specialty Producers Association

Growing Resilient Local Food Systems:
A conference for producers and supporters of local foods

<h1>What is the Local Foods Conference?</h1><p>The Local Foods Conference is a three day, virtual event celebrating local food production &amp; use in South Dakota. All supporters of local food are invited to attend, listen to, and discuss presentations on specialty crop production, addressing challenges, new technologies &amp; opportunities, and food production projects happening in South Dakota and neighboring states. </p><p>Our Thursday evening schedule will have our first keynote speaker, Rob Hage of the Blind Butcher Brewing Co., to share his story. This will be followed by a panel of SARE Grant Recipients telling about their projects, and tips from their experience with the SARE program. </p><p>On Friday, our second keynote speaker will present after the presentation of the 2021 South Dakota Specialty Producer of the Year Award. Jean-Martin Fortier, a well known Canadian specialty crop producer and author of The Market Gardener will be sharing his experience helping producers, and presenting on Working with Living Soils. Friday and Saturday's schedule will continue with breakout sessions designed for entrepreneurs, producers and consumers. </p><p>The virtual experience is being designed to allow for plenty of Q &amp; A, Audience Interaction, and time for attendees to network in breakout rooms. The first 100 attendees to register (with a cutoff date of October 25th) will also be mailed a goodie-box with a physical copy of the event program, a book, and other fun items to enjoy. To receive a box, you must email your name (must match ticket) and mailing address to sdspecialtyproducers@gmail.com by October 25th. </p><p>Attendees will be provided with access to the videos until May 31, 2022. After that point, some of the videos may be shared publicly. Please note, Jean-Martin Fortier's presentation will not be recorded, so please make plans to watch it live. The SARE Panel presentation will be available publicly at the conclusion of the conference. </p><p>Times listed are in the central time zone. </p><p>Links will be provided to attendees through eventbrite, and a digital program will be emailed to those registered by November 1st. </p>

<h1>Thank You to our Event Sponsors:</h1>

<h1>Breakout Session Presentations </h1><h3>(all live streamed with time for Q &amp; A):</h3><ul><li>Small Enterprise Product Pricing and Budgeting (AJ Granelli)</li><li>IPM for Organic Production (Amanda Bachmann &amp; Gared Schaffer)</li><li>An Overview of South Dakota Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources' Specialty Crop Program (Bill Smith) </li><li>Living Mulch: A discussion of on-farm innovation with cover crops (Kristine Lang &amp; Dr. Rhoda Burrows)</li><li>Diversifying with Agritourism (Jacey Ellsworth &amp; Peggy Schlechter)</li><li>Back to Our Roots: Food Preservation Across South Dakota (Megan Erickson)</li><li>Chicken Keeping, Egg Processing &amp; Entrepreneurship (Stephanie Peterson)</li><li>Revisiting South Dakota's Cottage Food Laws (Rebecca Terk)</li><li>Growing Farm to School (Anna Barr)</li><li>Plants, Passions &amp; Problems (Colton Riley &amp; Alexis Schmidt)</li></ul>

<h1>NCR-SARE FARMERS FORUM</h1><p>The North Central Region-Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (NCR-SARE) Farmers Forum is a traveling annual event giving farmers, ranchers, researchers and others the chance to share information about sustainable agriculture practices with a national audience.</p><p>These presentations focus on research, demonstration, and education projects that promote profitable practices that are good for the environment and community. The projects highlighted in these presentations and the Farmers Forum are funded by grants from NCR-SARE, a USDA funded program that supports and promotes sustainable farming and ranching by offering competitive grants and educational opportunities.</p><p>For more information about NCR-SARE, see: www.northcentral.sare.org or contact NCR-SARE by email: ncrsare@umn.edu, or phone 612-626-3113.</p><p></p>

<h1>Keynote Speaker: Jean-Martin Fortier (The Market Gardener)</h1><p>    Working With Living Soils - Everyone’s talking about soil these days: no-till, no-dig, carbon farming, regenerative agriculture, and so on. What unites all these philosophies is living soils. In this information-packed session, Jean-Martin will explain the principles and practices to harness soil biology and maximize production while enriching the soil on small-scale mixed vegetable farms.</p>

<h1>Keynote Speaker: Rob Hage (Blind Butcher Brewing Co.)</h1><p>The pandemic of 2020 changed how the Hage family thought about their 30 acres in Lyon County, Iowa. They began to give greater consideration to sustainability and stewardship of their resources in land and buildings. They ventured beyond crops and vegetable gardens and into livestock for the first time with a small cow/calf operation - and the occasional hog. Like many farmers, they soon discovered that their local meat lockers were filling up quickly and that there would soon be no place to process their growing beef. That being the case they invested in equipment and education, and learned how to process their own. </p><p>One thing led to another and soon they also learned how to brew craft beer. The notion of ever going beyond personal enjoyment of their craft was remote -the paperwork and investment was daunting. They laughed about what they might name that new venture. That all changed this past December.</p>

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2021 South Dakota Local Foods Conference

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