The CFAES Center for Cooperatives staff will be leading a session on Friday, February 25 during the 18th annual West Virginia Small Farm Conference being hosted online by the West Virginia University Extension Service. The FREE virtual conference is being held February 21-26. The WVU Extension Service Small Farm Center felt strongly that the event should be free this year due to the economic situations that individuals may be facing due to the continued pandemic.
The Center for Cooperatives session, Cooperative Solutions for Farmers and Rural Communities, will be at 11 a.m. Friday, February 25 and focus on how farmers and communities can come together to develop solutions using the cooperative business model to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs. “Participants in our session will learn about ways cooperatives can benefit rural communities and see actual examples of cooperation in rural communities,” said Joy Bauman, Cooperative Program Specialist.
Through the conference, WVU Extension aims to support West Virginia’s 23,000 small farm families and and further develop West Virginia’s food system and local communities by encouraging local production, processing, wholesale and retail marketing, and consumption. Conference participants will have opportunities to engage in a wide variety of session topics throughout the weeklong conference, ranging from meat and specialty crop production and marketing, to high tunnels, agritourism, forest farming, and more. Check out the full conference schedule to find what you are interested in.
Anyone can register for the WV Small Farm Conference via the Extension Service Online Learning System. Log in to the system and enroll in the 2022 West Virginia Small Farm Conference. Then register for the conference.
To learn more about how to register, watch this video recording on YouTube.