conference

It's the PASA conference. Every year at this time a couple thousand people who are interested in food have a get together.

Yesterday I had the chance to catch up with friends. To hear a Mennonite dairy farmer talk, for an hour and a half, about his family farms process for sprouting barley as a replacement for GMO grains. And to hear another farmer talk about the process of turning pork into aged charcuterie. And another hour and a half listening to a farmer and author on how to set up an on farm artisan cheese making facility. She and her family make 5 kinds of cheese, along with the occasional experimental batch of something else.

And a chance to participate in a roomful of people talk about debt. As it relates to farming. Followed up with additional conversations with people who are living on farm, debt free, and not working off farm jobs. The opinions were wide and varied and free flowing.

Then a movie about meat production in this country, and all the different ways different meats get on the table.

Today: more. It's fantastic to have information like this available in a jam packed 48 hours. It's a lot of work to pull all this together, and I'm sure glad the folks at PASA do it.

We would never be able to be here without folks agreeing to take care of all that is on our farm right now. Livestock in winter are a respectable amount of work to take care of, and we are lucky to be able to take this time.