Vermont Business Magazine The Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont (NOFA-VT) announced their 41st Annual Winter Conference, Back to the Roots, happening February 18th and 19th at the University of Vermont in Burlington, VT. Registration is now open!
NOFA-VT’s Winter Conference brings together hundreds of farmers, homesteaders, gardeners, land managers, educators, students, producers, policy-makers, and activists to learn, connect, organize, and celebrate the movement toward a more economically viable, ecologically sound, and socially just agricultural future.
The theme “Back to the Roots” is a nod to the fact that this is NOFA-VT’s first in-person conference since February of 2020. There is also a hybrid option.
The conference opens on Saturday with keynote speaker and internationally renowned activist Winona LaDuke, followed by over 35 workshops and panel discussions, exhibitors fair, film screening, children’s conference, and more. Sunday is dedicated to day-long intensive workshops on themes including building biodiversity on farms, people-powered change-making, and raising goats and sheep.
This is the forty-first year NOFA-VT is organizing their winter conference. What began as an annual meeting of farmers in a church basement in Montpelier in the eighties has transformed into a landmark event for New England’s agricultural community. The conference attracted nearly 1,000 people from around Vermont and the northeast to UVM’s Davis Center at the peak of its pre-pandemic growth.
"Whenever I attend a NOFA-VT conference, I always come away feeling so grateful to be a part of this community that NOFA-VT supports, nurtures, and holds together,” said Ryan Fitzbeauchamp, owner and farmer at Evening Song Farm in Cuttingsville, Vermont. “Somehow, even when the conference is virtual, I take away the same joy in being connected to this wide community of growers, gardeners, educators, activists.”
“After what we’ve all gone through these last three years, it’s never been more important to come together and imagine new ways of growing food, feeding our communities, stewarding our land, taking care of our home, and building a more resilient food system,” said NOFA-VT’s Executive Director, Grace Oedel. “Relationships are the foundation of change-making and the foundation of our organization. Nourishing our relationships and creating new ones is the first step in building the agricultural future we all long for, and that Vermont needs.”
Registration for the conference is offered at a sliding scale of $0-$300 dollars. The conference is free for Black, Indigenous, orand people of color, as well as farmers and farm workers experiencing economic distress due to unprecedented interruptions to local, regional, and global markets throughout the pandemic.
See full event details at nofavt.org/conference.
About the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont (NOFA-VT)
The Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont (NOFA-VT) promotes organic practices to build an economically viable, ecologically sound, and socially just Vermont agricultural system that benefits all living things. NOFA-VT was founded in Putney in 1971, making it one of the oldest organic farming associations in the United States. Today, NOFA-VT has nearly 1,600 members throughout the state.
Vermont (Statewide) – The Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont. Learn more at nofavt.org.
