Jim Gerrish to Speak on Grazing in Five Kansas Communities during August

Jim Gerrish, well known Idaho rancher, researcher, grazing educator and co-founder of the Missouri Grazing School will deliver five workshops across Kansas in August.   Each presentation will be tailor made for the grasses, forages, rainfall, growing conditions and grazing potential in that area of the state.  

Jim is author of two books Management-intensive Grazing: The Grassroots of Grass Farming published in 2004 and Kick the Hay Habit: A Practical Guide to Year-Around Grazing published in 2010. Jim writes for The Stockman Grass-Farmer magazine.

Topics to be covered: Getting the Most from Your Pastures and Building a Better Solar Panel, Kick the Hay Habit, and Grazing System Design.

 The itinerary for August 16-20, 2011 is as follows:

Tuesday, August 16 – Atwood, Aberdeen Steakhouse (note change from Colby)
Wednesday, August 17 – Hays, Whiskey Creek Restaurant Meeting Rooms.
Thursday, August 18 – Garden City, Lee Richardson Zoo, Finnup Center  

Friday, August 19 – Emporia, in conjunction with Beef Fest, Lyon County Fairgrounds.*
Saturday, August 20 – Holton, Evangel United Methodist Family Life Center 

Registration and networking among ranchers will start at 9:00 a.m. with the workshop running 10:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

*The August 19th Emporia workshop, held in conjunction with Flint Hills Beef Fest, will start at 7:15 a.m. with a free breakfast and additional speakers; Jim will start 10:30 or so.

Ranch managers will learn grazing information and management skills that will improve production and profitability. Bring any questions and Jim will answer them. 

This workshop is made available due to a grant award to the Kansas Rural Center from the USDA Risk Management Agency.  Kansas Farmers Union along with Kansas Grazing Lands Coalition and Kansas SARE are joining KRC as co-sponsors. 

Registration Fees:

    First Registrant $35
    Additional Registrant: $25/person
    Student: $15
    Special pricing for Emporia: $10

To register online,  click on your preferred workshop date by the August 12 deadline:

• Atwood: August 16 
• Hays: August 17
• Garden City: August 18
• Emporia: August 19
• Holton: August 20

Questions?

Contact Mary Howell, email, 785-562-8726

About our speaker

Jim has over 20 years of beef-forage systems research and outreach while he was on the faculty of the University of Missouri and 20 years of commercial cattle and sheep production on his family farm in northern Missouri.  Besides workshops and seminars, he provides an on-ranch consulting service which helps farmers and ranchers more effectively manage their grazing lands for economic and environmental sustainability.  From his present location at May, Idaho, Jim writes a monthly column Grassroots of Grazing for the Stockman Grass Farmer Magazine and is a contributing editor to Beef Magazine.

Post-Harvest Handling, Food Safety, and GAPs: Making it Work on a Real Farm

Course description
As the demand for local and organic food has exploded in the last five years, so has the expectation on the part of consumers and institutional buyers for clean produce that lasts on the shelf and in the refrigerator. At the same time, institutions have begun demanding food safety assurances, and now the Food Safety Modernization Act has opened the door for FDA regulation of the production and handling of fresh vegetables and produce.

Join Rock Spring Farm's Chris Blanchard for a review of post harvest handling practices, and the methods developed at Rock Spring Farm for meeting the documentation and record-keeping requirements of the GAPs audit process in a way that flows with the work on the farm, rather than existing as a separate set of tasks and requirements.

Resources...
• Attendees will receive:
• Food Safety Begins on the Farm
• Food Safety Begins on the Farm: A Grower Self-Assessment workbook
• Sample farm map and SOP
• Water testing FYI handout

Who should attend?
•Specialty crop farm owners/operators and key employees
• School garden staff
• Food service/produce buyer professionals
• Extension staff, NGO staff, nonprofit employees, educators who work with specialty crop production and/or food safety/service

What you will gain...
• Ability to describe the main areas of farm food safety
• Ability to assess areas that require implementation of GAPs to reduce chemical, physical, and biological risks.
• Ability to develop SOPs and record keeping logs for key areas.

About the Speaker
Chris Blanchard owns and operates Rock Spring Farm, with fifteen acres of certified organic vegetable, herb, and greenhouse production north of Decorah, Iowa, selling produce year-round through a 200-member CSA, food stores, and a farmers market since 1999. Under the banner of Flying Rutabaga Works, Chris' workshops about farm business concepts, food safety, organic vegetable production, and scaling up to farmers throughout the country have gained a reputation for fresh approaches, down-to-earth information, and honesty. He also co-directs the MOSES Organic Farming Conference. Rock Spring Farm passed the USDA GAPs audit in the fall of 2010.

Registration and Schedule
Thanks to the generous support of our sponsors, we’ve been able to keep costs low. Please mail or drop off your registration as soon as possible to ensure that we have the appropriate number of handouts and food.
Registration begins at 8:30 a.m. Workshop begins at 9 a.m. Workshop concludes at 4:45 p.m.
Location: Dreher Family 4-H Building, (next door to the Extension office), 2110 Harper St, Lawrence.
Questions? Contact us at 785-843-7058

Download Workshop Registration Brochure

Central Kansas Vegetable Growers Workshop Set for Wichita February 12

The second annual Central Kansas Market Vegetable Growers Workshop, will be held February 12, 2010 from 8:45 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. in 4-H Hall at the Sedgwick County Extension Education Center at 21st and Ridge in Wichita, Kansas. The workshop, which is sponsored by Sedgwick, Butler, Harvey, and Reno County Extension, will give beginning and experienced vegetable growers new skills to improve their production methods and marketing skills for selling their local vegetables, while meeting an increasing demand for locally grown produce.

The workshop will cover the basics of vegetable production with a special emphasis on techniques for extending the harvest season for vegetables.

Topics will include: high tunnels, tomato grafting, berry production, winter greens production, agritourism, and community supported agriculture.

Featured speakers include:

• Dan Nagengast – Dan has been farming in the Lawrence, Kansas area for more than 20 years, and has years of experience growing vegetables and flowers in a high tunnel. He is Executive Director of the Kansas Rural Center.
• Dr. Cary Rivard – Cary is the new KState Research & Extension Vegetable and Fruit Specialist. His most recent research deals with tomato grafting as a way to deal with soil-borne disease issues in organic and heirloom tomato production.
• Jay Sleichter – Jay is a market farmerfrom Clay Center, Kansas. His family grows vegetables on less than 5 acres, including in 6 high tunnels.
• Dr. Brenda Olcott-Reid – Brenda is the owner of Brenda’s Berries & Orchards in Chetopa, Kansas. She grows raspberries, blackberries, apples, and peaches for u-pick and pre-pick sales.

Cost of registration is $20 before February 4, 2010 and $25 after. Register online at http://vegetable growers workshop.eventbrite.com or by calling 316-660-0144. For more information, please call Rebecca McMahon at 316-660-0142