Kathy Webster has been attending the EcoFarm conference for more than eight years and has been passionate about getting more livestock workshops on the conference agenda,
EcoFarm 2019 – Recap
EcoFarm Awards Banquet & Ceremony. Food What? receiving their Justie award for work as a critical aspect of social justice as it pertains to ecologically sustainable agriculture and food systems.
Kathy Webster has been attending the EcoFarm conference for more than eight years and has been passionate about getting more livestock workshops on the conference agenda, particularly regenerative agriculture workshops. The past few years I have served on EcoFarm’s Board of Directors and Planning Committee.
Each year more than 400 workshop ideas are submitted to the Planning Committee for review and the Planning Committee goes through each workshop description and narrows it down 70+ workshops. I submitted several workshops (all pertaining to regenerative agriculture and livestock). Three were selected and apart of the 2019 EcoFarm Conference: Grazing Sheep in Perennial Crop Systems; Women in Regenerative Agriculture; and Range Riders: Coexisting with Predators.
All three workshops were at capacity and filled with a diverse group of eager learners. The speakers were well paired and complimented each other in their knowledge of the topics. Organizing and moderating the workshops, I was able to interact with some of the attendees and get feedback, both before and after the workshops. There were many first-timers to EcoFarm (including several of the speakers) and a few even said they were at the conference for that particular workshop.
One of the workshops, ‘Women in Regenerative Agriculture’ was written up in the San Jose Mercury News!
https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/02/03/promoting-regenerative-agriculture-through-women-farmers/
Women in Regenerative Agriculture taking in the ocean air before presenting their inspirational workshop. From left to right: Hilary Zaranek-Anderson, Baji (Christine) Hantelman, Kathy Webster, and Doniga Markegard.
After successfully seeing the ‘livestock’ section grow over the years from a 1-day preconference to an all-day preconference plus a livestock track is a huge kudo to help EcoFarm become an even more rounded, educational conference, attracting more diversity in the agriculture world.
Several of us are already talking about EcoFarm 2020 and getting a well-rounded group of inspirational speakers to share their experiences and knowledge in regenerative agriculture for the 40th Annual EcoFarm Conference.
