Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture

LC Logo 14th Annual Midwest Value Added Agriculture Conference

Date: Wednesday, December 12th, 2012 to Thursday, December 13th, 2012

Location: LaCrosse Center, LaCrosse, Wisconsin

Contact: Melanie Baumgart, conference coordinator, (715) 579-5013, melanie@rivercountryrcd.org

An estimated 350 people from Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin are expected to attend this educational conference to small-scale farmers, regional educators and farm service professionals. This is the 14th year for this popular event.

The MVAAC is an opportunity for farmers, consumers, entrepreneurs, non-profit staff, cooperative staff and agribusiness and agency representatives to make connections and learn from each other about how to foster more profitable, innovative and sustainable farming operations.

Keynote presentations will be given by:

  • Laura Jackson, author of The Farm as Natural Habitat: Reconnecting Food Systems with Ecosystems, a professor of biology at the University of Northern Iowa and a Leopold Center advisory board member;
  • Francis Thicke, author of A New Vision for Iowa Food and Agriculture: Sustainable Agriculture for the 21st Century; who operates an organic dairy near Fairfield, Iowa and is a past winner of the Spencer Award for Sustainable Agriculture; and
  • John Ikerd, author of Small Farms are Real Farms: Sustaining People Through Agriculture and Sustainable Capitalism: A Matter of Common Sense.

The conference also will feature a farm dinner banquet, presentation and book signing with famed Wisconsin author and entertainer Michael Perry. More than 80 percent of the food sourced for meals and snacks will be from local producers.

Conference sessions include Marketing, Farm to Fork: Accessing Local Food Systems, Business Management, Farmer to Farmer: Nuts and Bolts of Successful Strategies, On Farm Renewable Energy and a Fast Track. The conference will also feature networking sessions and an extensive tradeshow.

The Leopold Center is among the co-sponsors of this event.

Related information

Conference brochure and registration [PDF]

Early-bird registration has been extended to November 15.

Conference website [River Country RC&D]