NOFA-NY Winter Conference

One Conference I look forward to every winter is the NOFA-NY conference.  I have been attending now for three years and every year seems to get better and better.  Well I will admit two years ago Michael Phillips of the Organic Orcahrdist fame gave a whole day lecture on apple trees and that still remains my biggest highlight but this year offered many different seminars.  I attended seminars about apple tree diseases, cut flower production, butchering, raising pigs, gardening with rocks and putting together an affordable small greenhouse.

The biggest goal I have set for the farm since attending is obtaining our Organic Certification for our Tamworth and Berkshire pigs.  I want to continue selling feeder pigs and whole and cut pieces of pork but I want to be able to advertise them as Organic Certified Pork.  We are already feeding all organic pig food, feeding organic hay and not using any antibiotics so it seems like a logical next step.  NOFA will help with the certification and all I need to do now is complete the application and wait!!  I have until March 15, 2014 so I will be working on it soon.

In addition to the goal of acheiving Organic Certification for our pigs I also met a person who will assist in our organic apple production.  He gave a seminar and the number one rule for growing organic apples is to start with resistant varieties.  I currently have some resistant varieites and some that are not.  I look forward to working with him to improve my organic spray program and to make decisions about trees that are struggling.  All in an effort to have a sustainable organic fruit producing orchard for our customers.  The journey continues!