COLUMBUS, Ohio – New this year, the 2021 Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association’s (OEFFA) Sustainable Farm Tour and Workshop Series features four on-farm tours and two online workshop series designed to help early career farmers build legal resilience and established farmers transfer their land to the next generation.

The series also features 10 free video presentations from OEFFA’s 2021 online conference including practical production trainings, inspiring visions of a prosperous small farm future, honest reflections on 2020 and an insightful investigation of faith, food and race.

“This series allows farmers and gardeners to share production know-how with each other and helps build connections among farmers and eaters, strengthening our local food system,” said Renee Hunt, OEFFA program director. “New this year, we will also provide a taste of the OEFFA conference as we’ve curated a bite-sized collection of recorded videos from a diverse set of workshops and sessions normally only available to registered conference attendees.”

First up are free recorded sessions on OEFFA’s YouTube channel. Videos will be added in three “bites” on June 29, July 20 and Aug. 10 and can be viewed any time after these dates.

The first “bite” is entitled “Reflecting on 2020 and Finding Opportunity in Crisis.” In this bite, four panels with three speakers each will discuss the 2020 growing season and the road that lies ahead. This series of panel discussions features a diverse array of people from all over the food system who describe how their year went, what they faced, and how they adapted, what gives them hope and how they plan to move forward stronger.

Also in this first bite, three food system leaders discuss what was revealed in the pandemic crisis, the importance of collaborative approaches and why we need to build our power.

“Skill-Building for Farmers and Foragers” is the topic of the second bite. Experienced forager Nikole Nelson discusses many common edible plants that are often found where they are not supposed to be and can be easily foraged by city dwellers. Then, longtime certified organic vegetable grower Matt Herbruck discusses his farm’s four-year transition from an entirely tillage-based approach to a no-till, regenerative system.

Will Harris, of White Oak Pastures, will share his vision that is focuses on animal welfare, regenerative land practices and rural revival in his talk entitled ”Regenerating Land with Livestock.” On his Georgia farm he raises 11 species of livestock and poultry using regenerative land management.

Dr. Erin Silvas, professor of plant pathology at University of Wisconsin, will discuss identifying cover crops in organic grain systems through interseeding.

In the third bite, Rev. Marcia Dinkins, of Ohio Interfaith Power and Light, and Dr. Timothy Van Meter, of Methodist Theological School in Ohio, will hold an open conversation about the intersections of faith, food and race in our society.

The first of four tours begins Aug. 4 at the farm of Jordan Settlage, operator of Settlage & Settlage in St. Marys, Ohio. Jordan operates a certified organic dairy milking 120 cows for Organic Valley on more than 300 acres of perennial and annual pasture. At this stop visitors will see how this sixth-generation farmer manages pasture, moves and waters cows in a high rotation system, and serves as a master grazier in the Dairy Grazing Apprenticeship (DGA) program. Chelsea Gandy, OEFFA’S DGA education coordinator, will be on hand to answer questions about the program.

Tour stop No. 2 will occur Sept. 11 at Creek’s Edge Farm Retreat in Georgetown, Ohio. There farmers Denise and Skip Bollinger will showcase their flowers, berries and hemp farm. They also raise and release hundreds of Monarch butterflies each year.

Stop No. 3 is Sept. 26 at Purplebrown Farmstead in Hudson, Ohio, where visitors will learn of this diversified permaculture farm. Farmer Sasha Miller applied permaculture design process to implement regenerative practices on her 12-acre ridge. Here visitors will see an established cider orchard, pastured pork and outdoor shiitake production.

Stop No. 4 is the Season Extension Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Farm Tour on Oct. 17. This will be at the Boulder Belt Eco-Farm in Eaton, Ohio. Farmers Eugene Goodman and Lucy Owsley grow a wide selection of produce year round for their 40 CSA families, the Richmond Farmers’ Market and Oxford’s MOON Co-op.

Two workshops are also available and these are online as well.

The first is Planning to Transfer the Farm; it will be Oct. 14, Nov. 4 and Dec. 2 from 9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. each day. The series will guide participants through the process of transferring the farmland to a successor.

The second is Cultivating Your Legally Resilient Farm. It will be held Tuesdays, Oct. 19 through Nov. 16, from 6:30 p.m.-8:30 p.m. Exclusively for farmers and ranchers, this workshop delivers skills needed to resolve key legal vulnerabilities on the farm within a collaborative, interactive community of peers.

“OEFFA has offered annual farm tours and conferences for more than four decades,” Hunt said. “Farmers sharing knowledge with other farmers has always been at the core of our work. Whether on-farm or online, this series provides unique opportunities for local growers and eaters to learn about sustainable agriculture and nurture their connection to the ecological farming community.”