Special Events

Sunday, November 9, 2008 Tilth Producers Annual Meeting & Elections Sunday 8:30 am -10:00 am Attend the Tilth Producers annual membership meeting to vote for new Board of Directors members, hear what Tilth Producers is up to, and share your ideas on how Tilth Producers can serve you better. Your participation is essential to making Tilth Producers work for you! Elections will be held at the annual meeting. Nominations for the Board of Directors are open to any Tilth Producers member. If you’d like to serve on the Board of Directors, or want to nominate someone else, please notify Tilth Producers and come to the annual meeting. Nominations will also be accepted from the floor during this meeting. If you are interested in running for a two year board position or would like to nominate someone to the board, please send an email to: nancy@tilthproducers.org.

Throughout the Conference Trade Show From Friday 5:00 pm until Sunday 3:00 pm, resources of interest to Tilth Producers will be on display. Stop by and browse. You are welcome to bring printed material such as business cards, catalogs or brochures to distribute in the trade show area. Parent Cooperative Childcare A room will be set aside during the conference for children, starting on Saturday morning at 8:30 am. Parents themselves will need to form a conference childcare cooperative, and must meet in the childcare room on Saturday at 8:00 am to meet other parents, schedule shifts, and plan activities. Please be sure to fill out the back of the registration form indicating how many children you will bring.

Friday, November 7, 2008 WSU Symposium - Food Safety and Risk Management for Farmers 8:30 am - 4:30 pm This one-day Washington State University Symposium offers both vegetable and small dairy producers an introduction to food safety and risk management. Participants will have the opportunity to select one of two tracts during concurrent sessions: Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs) Tract: Growers are seeking information about food safety and good agricultural practices in response to recent contaminant outbreaks associated with produce. Several commodity groups have established guidelines for safe agricultural practices, but differences in recommendations exist, leaving producers wondering how to proceed. This tract offers science-based information from a multi-disciplinary group of WSU faculty along with producer, market manager and regulatory perspectives on food safety. Dairy Tract: Small dairy producers, as well as those interested in adding dairying to their diversified farm production, will have an opportunity to learn about food safety and risk management tools. Session topics include food safety and risk management on the farm, business planning tools and resources, producers perspectives as told through a lively panel discussion, farm succession planning, energy alternatives for small farms, crop insurance options, information on herd health, value-added products and direct marketing. Back to Top Welcome Reception - All Welcome - 4:30 pm - 6:00 pm Friday Night Films - double feature - 7:30 pm - 10:30 pm Growing Awareness by Jade Ajani and Lasercave Productions: This feature documentary from the Pacific Northwest examines Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA), through which consumers buy shares of a local farm's harvest, receiving a weekly supply of fresh food throughout the growing season. Small-scale organic farmers and CSA members from around the South Puget Sound region share their views on the present reality of small-scale farming and its impact on farmers, consumers, and the local community as a whole. With issues of sustainability and food security coming to the fore, Growing Awareness illustrates the importance of local small farms to a community and critiques the emergence of an organic-industrial complex as well as the modern corporate-controlled and government-subsidized global food system. The film features many familiar Tilth Producers member-farmers! Back to Top King Corn by Curt Ellis, Ian Cheney and Mosiac Films: King Corn is a feature documentary about two friends, one acre of corn, and the subsidized crop that drives our fast-food nation. In King Corn, Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, best friends from college on the east coast, move to the heartland to learn where their food comes from. With the help of friendly neighbors, genetically modified seeds, nitrogen fertilizers, and powerful herbicides, they plant and grow a bumper crop of America’s most productive, most-subsidized grain on one acre of Iowa soil. But when they try to follow their pile of corn into the food system, what they find raises troubling questions about how we eat and how we farm. Back to Top

Saturday, November 8, 2008 Saturday Morning Keynote Address Dr. Paul Hepperly, Research Director, Rodale Institute No Till, Organic and Traditional Agriculture: They Can All Work Together Saturday 8:45 am to 10:00 am Organic no till farming offers the potential to stimulate high crop yields and improve soil fertility and structure without using agricultural inputs restricted in certified organic agriculture. It is critical to both new organic no till systems and traditional agriculture to protect and improve our soil resources. Farm practices that conserve and increase soil biological diversity and its functioning are the intensive use of rotation, integrated plant and animal production, winter cover crops and mulches. These strategies play key roles in managing weeds, conserving soil moisture, preventing soil erosion, lowering run-off of water and nutrients and providing nitrogen needed for high crop yields. In organic no till crop rotations, cover crops and compost provide long term benefits to soil quality, productivity and conserve the environment, and are part of tried and true traditional agricultural systems applicable to all types of growers. For both organic and conventional farming, it is clear that growers must build soil organic matter. We believe that all farmers should be credited for their verified ability to improve soil organic matter content. It has been said that you cannot make progress without good measurement of where you are and an appreciation for where you want to go. In order to confront run-away climate change from greenhouse gas emissions while improving soil productivity and health, we must improve our capacity to measure soil organic matter. Back to Top Organic Wine Tasting Saturday 5:30 pm to 7:00 pm Taste the delicious and bountiful harvest of Northwest organic wines. Non-alcoholic beverages w!ll also be served. Cost is $15.00; use the Mail-In Registration form to sign up or pay at the door. Saturday Night Film: Good Food by Melissa Young, Mark Dworkin and Moving Images 8:00 pm This 72- minute documentary film presents a lively tour of various Washington state farms and ranches that have adopted healthier organic methods in raising their products, and offers several lucid arguments in favor of smaller, more efficient farms, and purchasing locally grown crops. Still, none are as convincing as the marvelous bounty laid before our eyes in this film. The film features interviews with many Tilth Producers friends and farmers you won’t want to miss seeing on the big screen! Back to Top Dance to The Music of Spoonshine - Back by Popular demand ! Saturday 8:00 pm - 11:00 pm Spoonshine has been creating and refining their handcrafted original music for nearly ten years to the delight of audiences up and down the west coast. Inspired by Northwest nature, history and culture together with American and World music traditions, they dazzle music-lovers with their energy, virtuosity and artful compositions. Their brand of Americana, along with a globe-spanning eclectic mix of original music is unclassifiable within conventional genres. Vocal harmonies, mandolin, guitar, keys, woodwind, fiddle, stand-up bass and assorted percussion combine to make-up this homegrown quartet’s sound. Back to Top

♥ And very special thanks to

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Quick Timeline

Friday, November 7

7:00 am - 9:00 am - Symposium Registration & Coffee
8:30 am - 4:30 pm - Symposium: Food Safety for Farmers
3:00 pm - 9:00 pm - Tilth Conference Registration
4:30 pm - 6:00 pm - Tilth Conference Welcome Reception
6:00 pm - 7:00 pm - Dinner
7:30 pm - 10:30 pm - Films: Growing Awareness & King Corn

Saturday, November 8

7:00 am - 10:00 am - Conference Registration
7:00 am - 8:00 am - Breakfast
8:45 am - 10:00 am - Keynote Address
10:00 am - 10:30 am - Coffee Break
10:30 am - Noon - Workshop Session A
12:30 pm - 1:30 pm - Lunch
2:00 pm - 3:30 pm - Workshop Session B
3:30 pm - 4:00 pm - Coffee Break
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm - Workshop Session C
5:30 pm - 7:00 pm - Wine Tasting
6:30 pm - 8:00 pm - Dinner
8:00 pm - 9:30 pm - Film - Good Food
8:00 pm - 11:00 pm - Dance with Spoonshine

Sunday, November 9

7:30 am - 8:30 am - Coffee
7:30 am - 8:30 am - Breakfast
8:30 am - 10:00 am - Tilth Producers Annual Meeting & Elections
10:00 am - 10:30 am - Coffee Break
10:30 am - Noon - Workshop Session D
12:30 pm - 1:30 pm - Lunch
2:00 pm - 3:30 pm - Workshop Session E