Minnesota organic farmers, processors, wholesalers and distributors are needed to serve one-year terms on the Minnesota Organic Advisory Task Force (OATF). The task force meets three or four times a year. Deadline to apply is June 26. Read more.
The Midwest’s first Farm Hack event—Farm Hack Iowa, June 20-21, 2012 at Echollective Farm in Mechanicsville—brings together farmers, designers, engineers and tinkerers to collaboratively shape an open-source future for farm technology and machinery. Farm Hack Iowa is a collaborative program of The Greenhorns and the National Young Farmers’ Coalition.
Focus for this event will be on-farm energy production, including electric tractor conversion and biodiesel production from waste oil. Participants will demonstrate innovative on-farm designs already in practice, and share and create new ideas for invention. Farm Hack was to encourage a new culture of agricultural design; one of creative, open-source adaptation and invention that fits the needs of the diverse farmers working our land. Farm Hack also has Internet forums where farmers can brainstorm, share and discuss designs and tools across the country.
Organic Trade Association: Producing U.S. foods organically creates thousands more jobs than if that food were produced using conventional agricultural methods, according to a new economic study released today here at the Organic Trade Association’s (OTA’s) Policy Conference. The report, “2010 Impacts of the U.S. Organic Foods Industry on the U.S. Economy,” which shows the organic food industry generated more than five hundred thousand American jobs in 2010, builds on data released by OTA earlier in the week revealing the overall U.S. organic market in 2011 surpassed $31 billion for the first time. Read more here.
More Young People See Opportunity in Farming
While fresh demographic information on U.S. farmers won't be available until after the next agricultural census is done next year, there are signs more people in their 20s and 30s are going into farming. Click here for full story.
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