Conservation to be featured at Sustainable Ag Meeting

Published 9:13 am Monday, March 7, 2011

CLARKS GROVE — The public is invited to the annual meeting of the South Central Chapter of the Sustainable Farming Association on Saturday at the First Baptist Church in Clarks Grove.

The featured speakers for this meeting are Lansing Shepard and Paula Westmoreland who have recently published a book about the Blue Earth River basin, titled This Perennial Land. Lansing’s background in writing about conservation was combined with Paula’s training in Permaculture to produce this book. They will speak about a progressive approach to conservation of the landscape that emerged from their three year investigation into conservation practices in the Blue Earth River watershed. In their book they present a new vision for conserving farmland and natural resources for the Blue Earth watershed which has implications for other watersheds in our region.

The program will also include a presentation by Michael Cotter who is very well known for his storytelling about rural life. Michael has told tales at storytelling festivals across the country and hosted a festival that was held in our area. He will present some selections from the well crafted stories he has developed based partly on the many years he spent on his family’s farm near Austin.

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The meeting will start at 9 a.m. with registration followed by a short business meeting of the South Central chapter that is open to the public. The rest of the morning will be devoted to the presentation by Lansing and Paula. A soup and bread lunch will precede the talk by Michael Cotter. The meeting will end with two sessions running at the same time. One of the two sessions will be devoted to information on government conservation programs lead by area conservationist, Jim Jirik. The other session, on marketing locally grown foods, will be led by South Central Chapter member, Jill Louters, and a panel of other South Central members.

This meeting is open to the public. Lunch is available for $5. The church where the meeting will be held can be found by traveling west from the I-35 exit for Clark Grove to 1st Ave. SE and going two blocks South on this street. For information call 507 256-4876.