August 4, 2011: Register now for the ninth annual Michigan Family Farms Conference on Saturday, January 14, 2012 at Lakeview High School in Battle Creek. This year’s theme is “Building Your Success with Local Products, Partnerships and Planning”, and the day-long conference is packed with 18 educational sessions to connect family farmers with resources to build their farm’s successful future.
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The Michigan Family Farms Conference is a forum for beginning, small-scale and culturally diverse farmers to network, learn and build sustainable family farms. It provides a unique opportunity to connect with other growers and great resources and learn about topics important to family farms.
Dan Carmody, President of the Eastern Market Corporation, is this year’s keynote speaker. Eastern Market has been feeding Detroit since 1891 and has grown and evolved with the times, from the boom of the automotive industry to today’s recession. It is still offering fresh produce to Michigan families each Saturday.
Because this is the Michigan
Family Farms Conference, we also have a youth track for young farmers which will include educational topics like nutrition, careers in agriculture and natural resources, and the dollars and cents of farming. This track also includes a field trip in the afternoon to Binder Park Zoo.
Early-bird registration is open online and is only $35 per person before December 16, $30 for MIFFS members and $25 for youth. Visit www.miffs.org/mffc or contact MIFFS at (517) 432-0712 or miffs@msu.edu for more information or to register. The registration deadline is January 10, 2012. Some scholarships are available.
Partners and sponsors so far include: Michigan Food & Farming Systems (MIFFS), the Farm Research Cooperative, USDA Risk Management Agency (RMA), W. K. Kellogg Foundation, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA), Michigan State University (MSU), MSU Extension, the Potawatomi Resource, Conservation & Development (RC&D) Council, the C.S. Mott Chair for Sustainable Agriculture, the MSU Product Center for Agriculture and Natural Resources, Morgan Composting, and the Calhoun Conservation District.
For more information, please contact MIFFS at (517) 432-0712 or
miffs@msu.edu or visit
www.miffs.org/mffc.
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Founded in 1998, MIFFS is a statewide membership organization (501c3) whose mission is to help small and medium-sized farms operate profitably, produce healthy food for all people and protect the environment for future generations. MIFFS has been effective at establishing successful partnerships among producers, markets and institutions that have created more profitable, environmentally friendly food systems in Michigan.
To learn more, please visit
www.miffs.org or call (517) 432-0712.
