Harvest New England Agricultural Marketing Conference and Trade Show
The 8th biennial Harvest New England Agricultural Marketing Conference and Trade Show which draws hundreds of farmers and farm industry members to idea-laden workshops and hear motivational speakers from across the region, will be held virtually for the first time. Mark your calendars now for February 24th and 25th and join your regional agriculturists for two half days of workshops!
This year’s conference theme is Diversifying for Agri-Businesses: Strategies for Weathering the Storms. Kicking off the educational workshops on Wednesday, February 24th at 8:45 am is conference keynote speaker and seventh generation farmer and author, Forrest Pritchard from Berryville Virginia. His talk, entitled Lessons from 2020, Opportunities for 2021, will examine what the past year taught us not only about our operations, our markets and marketing, but most importantly, ourselves, and how farmers can use these lessons to sustainably pivot into 2021 and beyond.
Five additional workshops will follow on Wednesday and Thursday. These workshops will include farmers and experts from across the region, with a focus on product and market diversification. Information about all of the workshops, including workshop descriptions and speaker biographies, can be found at www.harvestnewengland.org.
Harvest New England is also developing a New England Farmers Market Managers Seminar to be held in conjunction with the conference. More details will be announced soon.
Registration is now open, and in 2021, the conference will be offered at no cost to attendees. Harvest New England recognizes that this year has been unprecedented for producers in many ways, and feels strongly that now more than ever, it’s important to provide agricultural businesses throughout the Northeast with the tools to remain viable, cultivate innovators, and foster the next generation of farmers.
Harvest New England (HNE) is a cooperative marketing program created by New England’s state departments of agriculture in 1992. It has sponsored this regional conference since 2007. For more information, go to www.harvestnewengland.org.