Restoration Agriculture Workshop

May 4-6, 2018 : Agner Farms : Bluffton, Ohio

ARE YOU READY TO CHANGE THE WORLD?

TAKING PLACE

May 4th-6th

20527 Township Road 56 Bluffton, Ohio 45817

“Restoration agriculture is the process of creating a viable ecological system based on natural patterns and relationships, that is perennial, and that produces staple foods, fuels, medicines, and fibers for human beings while providing an increasing number of available niches for animals both wild and domestic.”

In this Workshop, you will learn:

Designs to make your land more resilient in times of flood and drought
Planting & selecting tree crops for your site
How to integrate livestock into your system
How to cash flow until your tree crops start to produce

OUR INSTRUCTOR >

About the Hosts

Hello future workshop attendees, meet the Agners. These brothers and their family wish to support the community using regenerative agricultural practices with a focus on native perennial plants to produce food, fuel, fiber, and medicine.

By the groundbreaking of two small farms, and future sales through The Food Store (Owned by Jonah Agner), they’ll provide our local food economy by contributing products supplied by their farms and as many other community growers as possible. Joel's Farm is 10 acres of woodlands and Pasture. Jonah has a 5 acre farm nearby.

In this workshop, we will be continuing the develop our regenerative ag designs upon the two farms by adding more perennials and sharing with you the fruits of their labor!

This is not your typical permaculture workshop. From livestock, crops, and water management, you can see how these sorts of skills, that are useful in operating dynamic restoration ag systems, can work for you and your land.

OUR INSTRUCTOR

While homesteading in Alaska, Mark Shepard received his Permaculture Design Certificate through a correspondence course with Bill Mollison, the founder of the international Permaculture movement, and started developing his ideas for restoration agriculture.

Then he moved with his family to southwest Wisconsin, where he began converting a typical row-crops grain farm into a commercial-scale, perennial agricultural ecosystem using oak savanna, successional brushland, and eastern woodlands as the ecological models. His New Forest Farm is considered by many to be one of the most ambitious sustainable agriculture projects in the United States.

After spending over two decades developing his 106-acre New Forest Farm, Mark now crisscrosses the country and travels the globe helping others to design their own perennial woody-crop systems. As a grower for Organic Valley cooperative since the beginning, he is a big advocate of locally owned cooperative enterprises. His first book, Restoration Agriculture, offers an introduction to his approach, while his second book, now in preparation, focuses on water management.

Mark founded Forest Agriculture Enterprises, a plant nursery that grow and distribute genetically superior woody crop seedlings throughout the country. He offers his consulting services through Restoration Agriculture Development.

SPEAKERS