Welcome to the 37th annual California Small Farm Conference, a week-long event featuring over 40 online workshops as well as a dozen in-person gatherings around the state. Whether you’re a beginning farmer or a seasoned grower, a local food advocate or a farmers market manager, you’ll find something here for you. This year’s theme, "Rooted in Place", honors the vital relationship between farmers, communities and the land they steward.
Check out the schedule below for event times and locations. Click "Reserve Tickets" to register. Admission is on a sliding-scale, to ensure everyone can attend. Please select the amount you’re comfortable paying. Enjoy the conference!
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Beneficial birds and insects target a range of insect and rodent pests in agriculture. Farmland can offer diverse habitats to meet their reproductive and overwintering needs, which helps support these natural predators and creates a comprehensive defense system. In this workshop, we will explore the advantages of incorporating natural enemy birds and insects into agroecosystems and discuss ways to attract and support them using nest boxes, perches, flower patches, shrubs, trees, hedgerows, and riparian zones. We’ll also address their preferences for various native and nonnative plants. By inviting these beneficial species to your farm, you enhance sustainability and promote local biodiversity.
The Farmers Land Trust is a national organization working to support farmland protection, transition, and secure access for farmers through the innovative Farmland Commons model, which decommodifies land by placing it in the ownership of local communities. This dynamic and engaging presentation will share how the Farmland Commons model works, and participants will leave with the knowledge and resources that will enable them to carry forward creative land transition and access opportunities to their own communities.
Strawberries thrive in the cooler, sunny climates of California’s Central Coast which is why the region is home to the majority of the state’s commercial strawberry production. However, there are many small-scale operations throughout the state growing strawberries in hotter, drier regions. What does it take to successfully grow strawberries on a smaller scale—especially in less climatically ideal regions? How do coastal practices need to be adapted to hotter growing conditions? How does the heat affect disease and pest prevalence?
Join UC Cooperative Extension Small & Organic Farms Advisor, Margaret Lloyd, and Community Education Specialist, Lindsey Kelley, as we dive into these questions plus topics like cultivar selection, irrigation needs, planting and harvesting schedules, post-harvest handling, and more!
Most farmers know a newsletter is key to engaging an existing audience, but it’s the activities surrounding your newsletter that deliver growth. Scaling a CSA program requires more than just communication; it demands strategic planning and execution across various aspects of the business.
After a brief presentation, attendees will be guided through a hands-on workshop, where they’ll learn 5 strategies to grow a CSA. By the end of the session, attendees will leave with a clear, actionable plan to scale their CSA membership to 100+ members this season, leveraging a mix of good products, community engagement, and technology.
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Sunday February 23, 2025 1:15pm - 1:30pm PST
Online
We will cover the practical and legal knowledge required to run a successful operation in California alongside wildlife. We will cover deterrence, exclusion, guardian animals, and the dynamics of "Barnyard CSI" and kill site forensics. We will also touch on conflict with domestic animals (especially loose dogs) with livestock, and how wildfires, drought, and a changing legal landscape impact farmers, ranchers and wildlife. Our perspective is pro-farmer, pro-rancher, pro-homesteader, and pro-wildlife. Attendees will come away informed and empowered, including with information on how to access free resources to solve conflicts with wildlife legally and safely.
This workshop will explore the weaving of spirituality and agriculture from the experience of several panel members. These will include representatives from (for example) the Biodynamic community, Native American / Indigenous farmers, food producers with a more traditional faith background, and those with an atheist/agnostic spirituality.
Science has given us so many incredible tools to advance agriculture and especially food production. We can now produce more food with greater nutrition in more diverse ecosystems while paying attention to the impacts of different methods on the environment and segments of society. But a scientific focus can also lead to objectifying nature as something to manipulate at will, to control and use as a lifeless, mechanical resource. But what if the soil has soul? What if the land we depend on for life and livelihood has something akin to consciousness or even personhood--different from the human sort but just as real? Historically, many indigenous cultures have not separated their collective experiential knowledge (another name for empirical science) from their spirituality. What might it look like to form more intentionally collaborative relationships with the more-than-human beings that feed us, to honor spirit and science together? This upbeat workshop will be facilitated with curiosity, dialogue among speakers, and respect for diverse views.
I'm a new farmer with my very first commercial growing operation! Belong Farm has been a dream for many years so I am excited to see it take shape. I am using regenerative ag methods, and thrilled to join the badass farmer network that makes up Foodshed where we make uber nutritious... Read More →
