Webinars & Events

1. Webinar Series: Growing Deep Roots: Illinois Farm to School Summer Institute    
June 1 - August 15
Are you connecting kids to local food, gardening, or food education? 
The Illinois Farm to School Summer Institute is a revolutionary new way to find exactly what you need to build and deepen the impact of your farm to school program. This free, virtual institute opens on June 1 and closes on August 15, 2021, allowing participants to discover tools, review resources, and receive one-on-one consultations on the topics they need to move their programming forward. Our training opportunity is open to child feeding, garden, and education site teams across Illinois. Check out all of the opportunities available as a registered site here!

2. Webinar: Guiding Resilience - A Legal Workshop for Farm Service Providers
June 17, 24, & July 1 // 2-4:00pm ET
Guiding Resilience is a legal workshop designed just for extension agents, nonprofit professionals, lenders, advocates, business advisors, and other agricultural service providers. This workshop empowers you to guide farmers and ranchers towards resolutions for their legal vulnerabilities. You will walk away from this five-session, highly interactive, and in-depth workshop ready to help farmers move forward from legal questions with confidence. Plus, you’ll have a new network of agriculture professionals to connect with on legal and other important topics. Learn more.

3. Virtual Training to Support Edible Educators
June 14-25
The Edible Schoolyard Project (ESP) is hosting their second Summer Training at Home, June 14, 2021 – June 25, 2021. This year's virtual professional development sessions will be open to all, and completely free to attend. The ESP team has planned activities that invite participants to create, cook, taste, and share experiences. Participants will leave this event series feeling invigorated and prepared to do the work of supporting youth to learn about food in a way that allows them to live and build a healthier and more just future. Learn more.

4. Webinar: Practicalities and Realities in Land Law: A Workshop for Ag Service Provide
June 15 & 17
Join Farm Commons for a two-session workshop designed to help agricultural service providers understand and deploy legal risk management strategies around land issues for the agricultural communities you serve. Together, we’ll explore the laws and legal principles behind land leasing, due diligence, purchasing land, conservation easements, zoning, paths to ownership, and social justice-oriented tenure strategies. With an emphasis on Northeast experiences but relevant nationwide, you’ll learn legal risk management strategies that help you help farmers, without overstepping your limits as a non-attorney. Learn more.

5. Webinar: 30% NYS Initiative: Opportunities, Barriers, and Pathways to Success
June 16 // 1:00-2:30pm ET
This webinar provides an overview of the 30% NYS Initiative: Opportunities, Barriers, and Pathways to Success report. The report is an analysis of procurement data from 53 of the 57 school food authorities (SFAs) that qualified for the K12 local food incentive policy, the 30% NYS Initiative, during the 2019-20 school year. In addition to analyzing procurement data, the research team surveyed successful SFAs to understand how they altered their diversions and use of entitlement funds, in preparation for the 2019-20 school year and barriers to purchasing local food, by commodity group. A combined analysis of the 30% procurement data and the survey results shed light on procurement trends, varying pathways, best practices, and strategic approaches to successfully achieving the 30% NYS Initiative. In addition to the report findings, presenters will provide a brief overview of the NY 30% Eligible Product Database. Learn more.

6. Call for Proposals: 42nd EcoFarm Conference 
Deadline: June 17
The educational content that EcoFarm Conference presents is crowdsourced – generated by the community. That means that whether you're a farmer, rancher, distributor, retailer, consumer, industry rep, consultant, activist, student, educator, or simply a lover of food and farms, EcoFarm want to hear from you! Learn more.

7. Webinar: Produce Prescription Programs Then & Now: Implications for Health & Systems Improvement 
June 21 // 2-3:30pm ET
Come join an interactive webinar to learn first-ever findings and recommendations on research of U.S. produce prescription programs from 2010 - 2020. This new report and interactive maps were commissioned by Wholesome Wave and prepared by DAISA Enterprises to further the evidence-base and policy-change potential for investment in food & health systems through the produce prescription model. In addition to research highlights, invited speakers will share context, field evolution, and opportunities to advance equity, program, and policy aims. Read the executive summary and register.

8. EQUITY Webinar: Food Justice: Ingenious Seed Keeping and Food Sovereignty
June 24 // 4:00pm ET
Inequities in our food system continue to disproportionately burden communities of color. Dismantling these inequities is imperative to achieve a sustainable food system and ultimately food justice. April Jones from Pinehurst Community Action and Farmers’ Market and Phoebe Gooding from Toxic Free North Carolina will co-facilitate a in depth discussion on Indigenous Seed Keeping and Food Sovereignty with Crystal Cavalier-Keck. Register here.

9. Webinar: Green Schools Conference
June 28-29
Annually, this conference brings together nearly 1,000 attendees who are critical to advancing green schools for all children—those who lead, design, build, and teach in schools around the world. The conference will address topics such as design for sustainability education and social equity, healthy schools and COVID-19 response, empowering student leadership, achieving climate commitments, and much more. Learn more and register here.

 

10. Call for Proposals: Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Working Group It Takes a Region Conference
Deadline: June 30
The conference Theme is Resistance and Healing Amidst Crisis and Injustice. These past 13 months have challenged us in ways many couldn’t have imagined with multiple, intersecting crises that have laid bare and deepened the injustices BIPOC and frontline communities have always dealt with and provided  ominous warning for climate change and other catastrophes that lay ahead. In this time of significant uncertainty mixed with tentative hope, NESAWG believes that the work of creating a sustainable, equitable and just farm and food system for all means that we must listen to the entire story.  We need to hear the struggles, particularly the least visible ones, how we rise to meet them, and most importantly, what we can learn from all of it. Learn more.

11. Montana Farm to School Summit: Digging Deeper (Helena, Montana)
August 11-12
Learn and share how Montana schools and programs are cultivating success through the core elements of farm to school--serving local foods, school gardens, and nutrition, agriculture, and food education. Workshops, field trips, and networking opportunities will provide inspiration and skill building. The conference will feature national and Montana farm to school champions who will share their stories and experiences. The summit will feature Montana Harvest of the Month successes and resources. Learn more and register for this in-person event.