Forest farmers viewing the forest botanical nursery at Smokey House Center.
Vermont Business Magazine Smokey House Center is excited to announce they will host the inaugural Northeast Forest Farming Conference in partnership with the Northeast Forest Farmers Coalition from September 6th through the 8th. The conference is made possible by support from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture, through the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program under subaward number LNE21-423.
The conference will offer a comprehensive exploration of forest farming featuring workshops including a Medicine Walk with Stockbridge-Munsee herbalist, Misty Cook, a field session on the propagation of woodland botanicals with Margaret Bloomquist, an applied personhood, contextual sanctity and stewardship poultice workshop with Two-Spirit Curandere Eltón García-Sosa, wild-simulated ginseng production by Anna Plattner and Justin Wexler of Wild Hudson Valley, and a shiitake inoculation workshop with Corinna Steinrueck, among others.
In addition, there will be classroom presentations on the basics of forest farming in the Northeast, along with a session highlighting government resources and opportunities available for beginning forest farmers and those interested in agroforestry.
The keynote panel, happening Saturday evening, will center on exploring how to better weave the value of reciprocity into the forest farming movement unfolding across the Northeast. The event includes meals and live music Saturday night, featuring local musician Ida Mae Specker.
Forest farming is an agroforestry practice with roots in indigenous plant traditions that involves growing and stewarding non-timber forest products (NTFPs) under forest canopies. It can increase economic resilience for farms by diversifying income streams while helping to restore at-risk plant species and keep our forest as forest.
Smokey House Center started a three-year forest farming project which started in 2023 and is supported by a major Northeast Sustainable Agricultural Research and Education (SARE) grant that focuses on conducting applied forest farming research and education in collaboration with researchers, forest farmers and local youth at Smokey House Center.
The underlying objective of the project is to develop new strategies for providing planting stock of commercially valuable and at-risk native forest plants such as ginseng, ramps, and goldenseal.
Hosting the Northeast Forest Farming Conference, in collaboration with the Northeast Forest Farming Coalition, aligns with Smokey House Centers goal to educate regional forest farmers with best practices and connect them with essential resources, including their need for educational support, financial assistance, and planting stock. It should be a wonderful weekend full of knowledge sharing and envisioning a more resilient future!
For more information and to register for the event, please visit Smokey House Center’s website at www.smokeyhouse.org/happenings.
About Smokey House Center:
With an almost 50 year history, Smokey House Center’s fundamental purpose is to maintain a working landscape that promotes sustainable agricultural and forestry practices while engaging people in meaningful ways.
About Northeast Forest Farming Coalition:
The NFFC partners with individuals, farms, universities, nonprofits, businesses, and other organizations with the shared goal of growing forest farming opportunities and education within the Northeast region.
About Ida Mae Specker:
Ida Mae Specker is an old-time fiddler, folk singer and songwriter from Andover, Vermont. Her music fuses original, contemporary, and traditional material, bringing heartfelt new life and relevance to the chain of American folk music. Specker's EP of original music, ‘Billy in the Heartland,’ was released in December 2019. A longtime member of family band The Speckers, Ida Mae is currently touring solo and with a backing band. Specker released a new EP on October 28th, 2023, a live session recorded in a church in Peru, VT by Dan Rome and Austin Burrell (Future Fields). Her live show features Specker's original songs in addition to creative arrangements of traditional old-time tunes, bluegrass and country songs. More information at www.idamaespecker.com
Source: 8.16.2024. Danby, VT–Smokey House Center
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