NOFA-NY Conference- Sunday recap
Sunday was a little bit of a bust- I only had til about 10:15, and the whole show was over at noon. I was starting to come down with the flu, but I dragged myself out of bed early to be there at 8:00 for Phil Botwinick’s talk on The Two Faces of Money. Unfortunately, Phil was in a car accident a week before and wasn’t able to make it.
When I walked in the hall first thing I saw Kelly Keck and his partner David. They were excited about Kristin Gillibrand’s appointment to the U.S. Senate, as she was the Congresswoman from their district. Kelly had previously run for State Assembly or Senate and they said Kristin was like their friend and it was weird that she was now a Senator.
Since Phil’s talk was cancelled I instead went to Carol McNeil’s talk on Soil Testing and Soil Survey maps. Brian Boucheron and I sat together, and he updated me on the work he is doing now as an intern in Scottsville. I’m hoping he’ll do some guest posts here this year. Carol’s talk covered simple soil pH tests you can get from Cornell Cooperative Extension, and an awesome online soil survey mapping tool.
Carol also pointed us to Cornell’s online IPM Field Crop guide.
Finally, I attended Mike Kimball (Essex Farm) and the Thorpes (East Aurora) presenting on their experience with their CSA operations. Mike charges $2800 for the first family member, $2400 for the next, $2000 for the third and all kids under 13 fly free. This seems exhorbitant, but keeps the margins up and the no-money liberals away. Although most of the membership are wealthy liberals, they subsidize many other members, about 115 total, who can’t afford the CSA. It’s all you can eat, with some limits on things like baby zucchini and pork chops.
My impression is that these folks work exceptionally hard for no money. Someone said that they felt they were performing community service by being a farmer, and that was the take-away for me.