The “Living Your Small Farm Dream” conference and trade show will be held Saturday April 2, 2016 at the Shisler Conference Center on the OARDC campus in Wooster. The conference is offered by the OSU Extension Small Farm Program and is focused on meeting the needs of small farm and rural land owners. The conference provides participants with information, ideas, skills, and resource contacts that can be used to improve or expand an existing operation, start a new enterprise or simply gather ideas on how to utilize rural acreage.
Participants will choose from 28 different sessions offered over 4 breakout sessions during the day. Presenters include OSU Extension specialists and educators, USDA agency personnel, and innovative small farm entrepreneurs. The trade show represents industries, businesses, services and organizations that provide products or services utilized on a small farm or rural property.
A sampling of some of the topics that will be covered at the conference includes:
- Raising chickens and turkeys
- Soil health and productivity
- Raising sheep and goats
- Pond care
- Using and Evaluating hay
- Fruit tree pruning
- Grass-fed beef
- Do’s and Don’ts of Livestock Fencing
- Pumpkin Production
- High, Medium and Low Tunnel Vegetable production
- Cheese Making
- Raspberry, Blackberry and Grape Production
- Selling eggs, produce and cottage foods
- Marketing farm raised meat
- Small farm poultry processing
- Mushroom production
The conference begins with registration at 8:00 am, and an opening general session at 9:00 am. The conference concludes with closing comments at 4:00 pm. Registration cost is $60 per person, which includes lunch and morning refreshments. The registration deadline is March 25. A conference brochure and registration form along with descriptions of all the breakout sessions as well as on-line registration is available on the OSU Extension Small Farm Program web site at: http://agnr.osu.edu/small-farm-programs. Anyone with questions or in need of more information can contact the Wayne County Extension office at 330-264-8722.