MASSILLON Ohio — The 2018 Northeast Ohio Living Your Small Farm Dream conference will be April 7 at the R. G. Drage Career Center, 2800 Richville Drive S.W., Massillon.
The conference offers topics for small farm and rural landowners to improve existing enterprises or marketing opportunities.
There will be 26 different breakout sessions divided between five different track topics: horticulture, livestock, marketing, farm management and specialty crop. Presenters include OSU Extension specialists, Extension Educators, Business owners, and small farm producers/entrepreneurs.
The Small Farm conference trade show vendors and exhibitors will offer goods and services used in small farm operations. The conference schedule includes time to visit the trade show.
Sessions
The specialty crop track features sessions on malting barley and hop production to tap into the growing microbrewery businesses including a panel discussion with several local microbreweries.
The horticulture track offers sessions on growing grapes, brambles, vegetables, flowers, beekeeping, use of soil amendments, and managing soil health.
The livestock track includes sessions on raising and marketing pasture produced beef and poultry, as well as hay production and Ohio livestock care standards.
The farm management track includes ag law, business planning, tax issues, farmland renting, health care issues, and creating profitable small farm enterprises.
The marketing track includes a two-hour super session on, on-farm agritourism and agriculture entertainment businesses as well as sessions on how to scale up small farm businesses to take advantage of marketing opportunities and a session on developing a distribution system for locally grown foods.
Register
Conference registration and the trade show opens at 8 a.m. Following brief opening comments at 9 a.m., the first breakout session begins at 9:30 a.m. and the conference concludes by 4 p.m.
Registration is $60 per person or $100 for a combined registration if attending the Women in Agriculture Conference April 6.
Student discounts are $30 for attending the small farm conference alone or $50 for both conferences.
Pre-registration for both conferences is due March 23. Register online at go.osu.edu/NESmallFarmReg or visit go.osu.edu/NEOHSmallFarms for A Living the Small Farm Dream conference brochure.
For more information about the small farm conference contact Rory Lewandowski, Wayne County Extension, at 330-264-8722.
