SESSION DESCRIPTIONS

Chickens have long been central to small farm life—not only as a source of food, but as contributors to soil health, nutrient cycling, and daily farm rhythms. This session explores how raising laying hens and meat birds on pasture can support a regenerative farm system while continuing a tradition of animal husbandry rooted in care, stewardship, and connection to place. Drawing from lived experience, participants will gain practical knowledge alongside a deeper understanding of chickens as vital contributors to both farm function and farm culture.

We wont have meat birds on the farm by this point so it can be a walking on the farm talk or we can do it in more of a presentation and talking style.

Visioning is a tool that can help clarify what is most important. It defines what success looks like at a particular point in time in your future. It is a way to see the destination you’re aiming for so you can better prioritize how to spend your time and other resources (including physical and emotional energy) on a day-to-day basis. Practice writing a draft vision and learn how to share it with others. Leave with some practical strategies and helpful insights for incorporating (or re-incorporating) visioning into your life. Best of all, you’ll have a tool to help you get more clarity about what success means to you.

This guided marketing workshop centers on storytelling and the power of focusing on a niche clientele to market cultural events and products. We’ll work together to build an ideal customer persona and then use copywriting techniques to enhance product or event descriptions currently offered on your online farm store or printed materials. While we work, we’ll present on best practices and showcase real-life brand storytelling that works.

As land stewards, we are in relationship with a web of beings—from plants to animals to fungi to water to soil—that extends beyond simply the crops or livestock we tend. In this session, grazier, cheesemaker, and folk artist Taylor (Tig) Hartson will reorient farmers’ relationship to land stewardship from manager to catalyst through storytelling and participant reflection. Participants will leave this session with fodder for better understanding their role in a larger ecosystem and the tools for strengthening their relationships to more-than-human kin.

Understanding how living soil works is foundational to understanding regenerative farming practices because these practices (composting, mulching, reduced-tilling, cover cropping, etc.) are designed to protect the life in the soil. What is the “life in this soil?” This workshop will cover the basics of what “living soil” is starting with descriptions of the various microorganisms and how they all work together to create the best possible environment for plants to thrive in. This workshop will also cover several methods to build and maintain living soil in various growing systems.

Managing Succession and Stress provides a practical overview of farm succession planning and personal well-being. Participants will examine key questions needed to build a transition plan that addresses the needs of all involved, including day-to-day responsibilities, business management, income needs for the senior generation, and the transfer of land and assets. The session also helps participants recognize signs of stress and explore practical strategies to strengthen wellness and resilience during times of change.

This is an interactive presentation where participants will learn about the importance of including children in gardening and farming practices. Activities will emphasize seasonal awareness, imagination, and handwork to foster a reverence for life.

This presentation addresses the OSPREY project (Organic Seed Production Research on Economics and Yield), a national initiative funded by the USDA to strengthen organic seed systems. Organic Seed Alliance will share their collaborative research approach, as well as preliminary findings from our multi-location trials and on-farm research conducted across the country. We will highlight seed yield and economic data on our four primary model crops: tomatoes, lettuce, cucurbits, and brassicas. Attendees will also get a first look at the practical tools we are building for farmers, including a Seed Yield Database, crop enterprise budgets, and new educational guides focused on seed cleaning equipment and disease management. Finally, we will discuss how farmers can get involved in our participatory research and join upcoming seed focused discussions.

Participants from Michigan's Transition to Organic Partnership Program will be guided by a facilitator in sharing how their participation in a paid peer-to-peer mentorship program has shaped the way they farm. The roundtable will feature both mentors and mentees in the program who will discuss their experiences and impacts on farming and farmer well-being. There will be space for audience-initiated topics in the discussion. Information will also be shared about opportunities for participating in future farmer mentorship programs.

The National Park Service and local partners have been in collaboration for over 15 years working to preserve genotypes of colonial apple varieties throughout the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. Clones of apple trees from historically farmed locations on the Manitou Islands and mainland farms are propagated in a nursery before being used to replant remnant orchards in the Pt. Oneida Rural Historic District. Meticulous recordkeeping and mapping efforts have ensured that each clone can be traced back to its parent tree. However, survival and vigor of cloned trees has not been consistent across replanting sites. Varied soil types and land use history have led to differential outcomes for replanting efforts within the rural historic district. In this presentation, we will discuss efforts underway to use a mix of traditional colonial and modern organic orchard practices to improve the vigor and resilience of the replanted apple trees.

In this interactive session, you'll start by brainstorming goals for your farm. You'll see examples of farm plans and hear from the farmers who wrote them. Then, we'll give you access to the example farm plans and templates made from these real plans, as well as links for other resources for farm planning.

For the interested, the cautious and the brave. Saving seed and breeding plants used to be commonplace among farmers and gardeners alike. This knowledge is vital in building community resilience and resisting the control of big ag. Breeding varieties that can withstand the extremes of climate change while still producing well and maintaining genetic diversity is paramount in adapting and strengthening our local food systems. Seed saving is also a beautiful, vibrant pastime that can be fit in around regular farming practices (once you know the basics). It is also a great avenue for connection to living, and delicious, ancestral practices and our local area.
This session would focus on the building blocks of successful seed saving: selecting varieties, common pitfalls, avenues for collaboration, physical techniques, examples and resources for further study.
Participants can walk in knowing next to nothing except where they buy their seeds each year and come out with a better understanding of how to save seed, why it matters and where to start. Ideally, they would also come out excited about saving seed the next year, with the confidence to try.

The American Chestnut once stood tall before being reduced to remnant stumps after introduction of an invasive fungus. This presentation will cover ways the chestnut tree provided “cradle to the grave” resources for humans through its role in the ecological web. An overview of chestnut blight arrival and subsequent devastation it caused will be touched on before turning towards the historical and current efforts and methods in breeding resistant strains. Finally a local stand of large surviving American Chestnuts will be highlighted, also covering ways to participate in restoration efforts.

In this talk, we’ll focus on various methods of growing trees and shrubs from seeds and cuttings. Discussing in detail various methods of propagation including stratification of seeds, preparing cuttings, and an overview of grafting. We will go over species specific techniques as well as trouble shooting common nursery issues. The presentation will conclude with a hands-on demonstration of how to construct an air prune box. Air prune boxes are ideal for both backyard and farm nurseries allowing for the growth of hundreds of trees in a small area. They also protect seedlings from wildlife, prevent them from becoming rootbound, and need little maintenance. Participants will gain the knowledge and confidence to start growing their own trees and shrubs at home.

This session explores whole systems thinking as both a practical design approach and a different way of seeing the world, using growing in polycultures as one powerful example. A polyculture is a method of growing that mimics nature in its design, in which complementary species are planted together in what's known as a plant guild. These guilds rely on intentional biodiversity and companion planting that allow for high yields and more efficiency on planting areas. Participants will gain a greater understanding of the different members of a guild and how their roles offer a window into a much larger way of thinking.

Drawing on real-world stories about plants, animals, housing, and pests from small farm experience, this session demonstrates how whole systems thinking unlocks new opportunities and solutions to problems that a narrower approach often misses. Mainstream culture and economy tend to solve problems in the form of a product — a linear way of seeing the world that is often blind to (and even destructive toward) the complex web of relationships on the land and in our lives. This mentality, and the systems it has created, has contributed to a fragmented culture of isolation, instability, and helplessness. With tools like whole systems thinking — as exemplified by the polyculture's plant guild — better systems can be designed to grow a culture of belonging, resilience, and agency.

This session will explore concepts like feedback loops, leverage points, abstraction, constraints, trade-offs, game theory, and stewardship. In short, it's a conversation about creative problem solving, and how better solutions, in the garden and beyond, come from learning to see the whole.

Have you had your eye on a tool, but wanted to see it in action before you commit? This session will include demos of some of the favorite small-scale farm tools - seeders, paperpot transplanter, soil blockers, wheel hoes and other cultivation tools - so that you can understand if and where they might fit in on your farm.

Join us as we take the first steps towards the creation of a writing and visual arts anthology created by food (including restaurant) workers and farmers. The beginning of this workshop will share the general overview of what an anthology could look like and how it may come about. Most of the session will be dedicated to a generative writing and visual arts workshop. Abbey and Adam will provide some tips and suggestions followed by fiction, non-fiction, and poetry prompts. Bring your computer or a notebook, journal, and something to write with if going analog. For the visual artists in the group bring your computer, tablet, phone, and digital pen or your sketchbook and favorite medium/media. Have a project you’ve already started? Artists are also encouraged to bring writing or visual arts projects already in process to this session.

Local food and farms are an integral part of food co-ops. As co-ops grow, so does the demand for locally sourced goods. Join seasoned staff from Grain Train and Oryana, two northern Michigan Food Co-ops that have been supporting the local food economy for over 50 years, in exploring what local farmer/producer wholesale relationships have evolved into today and how to have the most success wholesaling to a food co-op. Bring your wholesaling questions, as this workshop will have a strong Q & A component.