About 150 growers, educators and agricultural professionals gathered at the Southeast Virginia 4-H Center near Wakefield, VA to learn new sustainable and organic techniques, exchange information and ideas, make new connections and renew old ones. Conference co-sponsors VABF and Virginia Cooperative Extension chose this beautiful rural Tidewater location for the Virginia Biological Farming Conference for a second year, in an effort to reach more of the region's small and larger scale producers.

After a morning pre-conference workshop on seed saving and organic seed production, the Conference opened on Friday afternoon with an excellent keynote address by long time organic grower and advocate Elizabeth Henderson. Breakout sessions covered organic production of vegetables, flowers and small fruit, organic certification, sourcing organic seed, CSAs, biological pest management, pastured pork, and ruminant health and nutrition. Participants could also explore frontiers of sustainable research, from vermicomposting and rhizosphere micro-ecology to compost teas, other microbial preparations, farmscaping and cover-crop-based organic no-till production systems. (For more information on the last topic, see Organic No-Till for Vegetable Production? posted at www.newfarm.org). Utilizing on-farm resources ­ including farmers' knowledge and skills ­ to grow our own soil fertility, pest and weed control, and even organic crop seed, emerged as a common theme uniting many of these sessions.

Organic Farming ­ Past, Present and Future

Elizabeth Henderson, who now manages a CSA at Peacework Farm in Wayne, NY, has farmed organically for 23 years, helped found the Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA) of Massachusetts, and worked with others for many years to develop sound organic certification standards, and more recently social justice guidelines for sustainable agriculture. Prior to her farming years, she grew up in a socially progressive family in the Northeast, and was, in her words "an urban peace activist," when she felt the need to live her values more deeply, and explored rural lifeways.

Elizabeth opened her keynote address with reflections on how the global food system has become corporate dominated over the past half century, while the number of farms in the US dropped from 23 million to under 2 million, and international trade agreements like NAFTA further undermine smaller farms everywhere. But she quickly snapped us out of this depression by asking, "how can we turn the tide?" She answered her question with a myriad ways that we can "create liberated zones, alternatives to the dominant system," using her own CSA as an example. She used Holistic Resource Management to integrate her personal spiritual values into farming, and this led her to choose the CSA model, with the goal of producing food for 100-200 families. When life circumstances forced her to move in 1997, the core group of her CSA helped her get established on a new farm (at the same time that she was completing her book, Sharing the Harvest), so that the CSA could resume in June of 1998.

Elizabeth showed slides of her current CSA operation, where the fertile silt loam is managed with cover crops, light compost applications ("oops, can't say that under NOP, better call it seedy ROM ­ rotted organic matter"), and a rotary spader (less harmful to soil structure than plowing). The CSA is a tight-knit community, in which each sharer does three 4-hour shifts at the farm a year on distribution days, rain or shine, and a core group of 25 does all the administration and finances. After harvest, they do other priority garden tasks, share a potluck lunch, then take the food bags to Rochester for distribution. Unlike many farmers in the South, Peacework Farm had the best farming year in 2003 that Elizabeth can remember.

In her policy-related work, Elizabeth has struggled for years to maintain the spirit of "organic" especially with the implementation of the NOP. In the NOFA definition of the word, "organic" means living lightly on the earth, and social justice standards, in addition to adhering to specific rules of production. Since the USDA flatly refused to consider social justice issues as part of the NOP, Elizabeth has worked with an international network to develop social stewardship standards including fair prices, decent working conditions, rights of indigenous cultures, an end to "sweatshops in the fields" and fair contracts for farmers. "The work we are doing is extremely important," she concluded. "It is about reducing our ecological footprint to a proportionate, fair size, and it is about food sovereignty, the right to grow, buy and eat local food grown by appropriate, nonviolent technology. A world where, instead of bombs and missiles, people will exchange seeds and recipes."

On Saturday evening, a panel consisting of Marty Mesh (Quality Certification Services), Jerzy Nowak (Head of Horticulture Department of Virginia Tech), Steve Diver (ATTRA Specialist) and Emile DeFelice (pastured hog and organic corn producer) led an open discussion of "Where are we headed in Organic Farming?" Emile, who is farming alternative livestock and minor breeds, expressed concern over the impact of GMO corn on organic livestock production, and suggested that all-grass farming may be the answer for beef. Steve sees connecting food production with local/regional institutional buyers as an important step, and noted that at least one college is now buying local produce. Jerzy sees partnerships between producers, consumers, politicians, researchers, breeders and regulators in our future, and noted that Swedish agriculture is now 16% organic, with a goal of 40% by 2006. In Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, leaders are discussing establishment of "green zones" where only organic or sustainable agriculture will be practiced. Marty stated that the future of sustainable family farms depends on direct grower-consumer links and improved access to direct markets. He has also been involved in developing social stewardship standards, and exemplifies this on his own farm, where all workers receive the same pay. "Watch out for export production," he added. "We must allow local food production in all countries to address world hunger."

When the question of pricing came up, Emile emphasized, "don't under-price. It is more than a piece of meat the customer is buying, it is also the connection with farm and farmer, your story, and the knowledge that it was produced with good stewardship." On the subject of breeding, Marty noted that publicly held plant varieties and animal breeds are essential to a sustainable future. Jerzy observed that a healthy root system makes all the difference, and that crops can be selected for a specific site or region, which usually means maximizing beneficial plant interactions with indigenous microorganisms. Several people discussed potential problems of taking modern livestock and poultry breeds out of factory farms and into pasture production ­ or of trying to sell the "bony little hens" of yesteryear to today's public. Perhaps we need breeding programs to start with the hardy heritage breeds.

The discussion also touched on the need for small-business-friendly regulations, and support for building infrastructure for smaller scale farm enterprises. On the policy end, Marty noted that a few people can significantly influence a Congressional Representative ­ as few as seven to eight calls on a given issue will get their attention. He also encouraged VABF to look into community food programs and school garden programs, and several others noted that agricultural education in the schools is currently a large, unutilized opportunity.