Areas of Interest

The WV Small Farm Conference typically features seven areas of interest designed with the needs and interests of our region’s diverse mix of small farmers in mind.

Fruit and Vegetable Production

Value adding

Value adding allows farmers to increase their income without having to grow more products. This concept often allows farmers to stretch their income calendar even when their crops have long been harvested. We have a very exciting set of classes to share at the 2010 conference. We feel fortunate to welcome Gourmet Central to lead two workshops that will prepare our farm families to further process, and market their production. The class list includes:

• The basics of value adding
• The role a value adder/processor can play
• What’s next after jams and jellies?
• Adding value to the steer and adding value to the carcass.
• Grass based beef and lamb.

Beginning Farmers

The tracks at the Conference are great opportunities for furthering grower’s education. In this track we are tailoring to those youth and adults that are interested in beginning their own production operation. There will be seven sessions covering a variety of topics.

One of the topics to be covered is foundational for all production agriculture- soil health. A farm’s soil condition is essential to its crop and livestock’s health. Another session will cover the use of drip irrigation for those beginning operations where water is a vital component. We will also have specialists sharing about starting small fruits production and starting your own produce farm. These sessions would be perfect for someone who is interested in plant production.

Whether you want to grow berries and poultry or beef and tomatoes, knowing your marketing options will make a difference between profit and loss. This is why we have a session dedicated to marketing options for those beginning farmers who will be developing their marketing networks.

Also, we will have a session to cover the ever so important business responsibilities that you will have. Taxes, business licenses and other important information is a must for your new operation to remain profitable and legal.

Finally, to answer any other questions or expand on information, this track series will include a Beginning Farmer Panel. The individuals on this panel will be from a variety of backgrounds and hopefully be able to share usefully information with those who attend the session.

Farmers Market Management

The number of farmers markets in West Virginia has doubled in the last 5 years. These markets represent the single most important direct market opportunity for small farmers. Careful farmers market management is a must. The West Virginia Farmers Market Association has joined the WV Small Farm Center to offer a full market management curriculum. The class topics include:

• Pricing your products in tough economic times
• Establishing a relationship with the community
• Promotion
• The beginners guide to starting a farmers market
• The beginners guide to joining a farmers market

Agri-tourism

Another way of increasing income and profit on the farm is by sharing your farmstead and lifestyle with others will to pay for that experience.
This enterprise skill set is called Agritourism, which is the title of another track for the conference.

• Running a successful bed and breakfast business
• What’s all the twitter about Twitter? ...and other mass communication tools
• How do I assess the effectiveness of my promotional efforts?

Energy

Energy is helping to shape nearly every management decision we make on our farms. There is so much activity in the energy sector that keeping up is more than a full time job. The energy track eliminates the need for sorting through all the information in search of accurate and useful adoptable energy concepts. The class list includes:

Energy conservation and efficient building (Save a penny, earn a penny)

• The importance of an energy audit
• Living and farming with energy efficiency in mind

Alternative energy technologies (Making power where you use it)

• Geothermal heating and cooling
• Solar hot water
• Solar electricity/photovoltaic
• Wind turbines
• Water turbines

Funding the energy project

• Energy credits/ federal and state
• SREC (Solar Renewable Energy Credits)
• USDA 9006 program

Animal Production and Marketing

Although Animal agriculture is reported by 65% of WV farmers as their main enterprise; it is sorely lacking in nearly every direct marketing venue. It seems that those who are currently producing livestock and their products have no interest in value adding by marketing to neighbors and those who would like to sell to their neighbors have no idea how to produce the animals or eggs profitably. The animal agriculture track for this year’s conference includes:

• How to sell your cattle to your neighbors
• Sustainable shepherding – will help the new shepherd how to sort out the important management information and skills from the others and those attending will learn how to produce lambs in a way that allows them to compete even in a commodity market.
• How to produce a low-cost dozen of eggs. “The ultimate egg layer budget” Can we actually make money selling eggs in venues other than a farmers market?
• Pastured poultry-
• Aquaculture systems for small diversified farmers
• Profitable Goat Production