COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Assoc. (OEFFA) is conducting its Sustainable Farm Tour and Workshop Series. The event will run from June-November, and organizers say there’s no better way for Ohioans to learn about the past and future of farming in the state.

 

“Ecological farming is really about place,” said Jess Lamar Reece Holler, OEFFA’s director of its Growing Right Oral History Project. “Every farmer has a different ecology they participate in based on where they’re located, and so one of the most palpable ways to experience that is to get on the farm and see and hear and smell for yourself what it’s like.”

This annual series of public tours features 33 organic and ecological farms and businesses in Ohio, providing opportunities for farmers, educators and conscientious eaters to learn about sustainable agriculture.

In addition to farm tours, this year’s series includes six educational workshops on personal food security, poultry processing, urban agriculture and the law, farm planning and scaling up production. Finally, there are four special events: a beginning farmer networking session, a farm-to-table dinner, a bicycle ride and a multi-part oral history pop-up tour.

Ohioans also can hear the stories of those who founded the state’s sustainable farm movement through OEFFA’s Growing Right Oral History Project Central Ohio pop-up tour of farmers’ markets and groceries, which is new to the series. Holler explained the field-based project features multimedia pieces, maps and photos from a few dozen farmers, gardeners, teachers and consumers who played a vital role in ecological farming.

“Some were students during the era of a lot of strip mining and came across a lot of texts really central to the environmental movement,” she explained. “Others, such as Charlie Fry, who was an incredible urban farming leader and street preacher in Cleveland – his involvement in organic farming actually grew out of the food justice and social justice concerns of the civil rights movement.”

Holler said knowing stories of the past is important for the future.

“Our past all the time informs our present, and there are also consequences to just forgetting where we came from and how it got started. So I think we’re at a really critical moment right now in terms of our environmental futures and the way our human health and communities’ health are connected to that.”

A few highlights include:

•June 6: Mixed Vegetable Production/Information Management Tour. Rock Dove Farm is a 23-acre certified organic farm in Madison County. Join Todd Schriver to learn how he’s focused on growing the crops customers want, and how he targets farmers’ and wholesale markets. He will tell you about his systems for collecting data to refine production systems.

•July 20: The Urban Renewal Farm of Jim Wellman. Visitors to this Montgomery County stop will learn how Wellman repurposed an abandoned factory into an urban farm. See how the farm grows food in raised beds in the parking lot, and learn about the challenges of converting the factory for year-round growing. 

•Aug. 13: Vegetable Equipment Systems tour. Ben Jackle will walk you through the process of equipment systems and the role machinery can play in making established systems on the farm more efficient at his Mile Creek Farm in Montgomery County. Jackle will explain how equipment can facilitate effective flow on a mixed vegetable operation and how systems work together.

•Sept. 24: Cheese-making and Homestead Tour. Held at the Blackstone Farm of Nicki and David Blackstone in Monroe County, this tour will feature learning stations from local Master Gardeners, touching on cheese-making, rendering lard, canning butter and milk, alternative livestock feeds, making sourdough starter, making soap, making lye, making hominy from field corn, composting and agritourism.

•Oct. 15: Farm Vision Workshop. This Fairfield County workshop will help one map out a farm vision, clarify goals and values and assess strengths, resources and needs before beginning a farming enterprise. A panel of early-career farmers will be on hand and visitors will receive important planning resources.

•Nov. 3: Grow More Vegetables. This workshop in Madison County is a twoday intense retreat that will help seasoned vegetable farmers advance their earning potential and enhance their management plans to boost soil fertility and yield. Central State University Cooperative Extension, Ohio State University Extension Sustainable Agriculture Team and the Clintonville Farmers’ Market are working together on the series. For a brochure of each stop, visit www.oeffa.org/documents/farmtours2017