PSPA is Guest of PASA

PSPA is Guest of PASA

On February 9 I had the privilege of attending the annual conference of the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture held in State College Pennsylvania. http://conference.pasafarming.org/

I’d been invited as a guest to the conference by Hannah Brubaker-Smith, the executive director of PASA. Hannah had recently attended a PSPA meeting as my guest at Delaware Valley University and returned the favor by allowing me to spend the day at the PASA conference. It was very interesting, to say the least! I got a chance to hear some outstanding speakers on both the general topic of transitions in agriculture as well as specifics, like how to grow and store winter vegetables. For someone interested in agricultural policy it was an interesting conference, as it highlighted sustainable and organic agriculture in Pennsylvania. But also for an old vegetable farmer like me, some of the presentations were interesting as I recalled my days both farming and helping high school students begin school farming projects. During the day, I met many very interesting people and learned a lot about new equipment for the “exploding” field of organic agriculture in Pennsylvania. Many agencies, vendors and producers displayed their programs and products. I even enjoyed a great lunch featuring “home-grown” products from a variety of PA farmer/vendors.

Thanks again to Hannah for having PSPA visit their annual conference. I would recommend that anyone interested in sustainable agriculture should attend at least one of these conferences, if you have a chance. Even given the long haul, in the snow, to State College for this guy from Delaware, I will probably be going back at some point in the future. Yep, it was that good!